


if ye love me, keep my commandments

by ernestdummkompf (JehanFerres)



Category: Don Carlos - Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos | Don Carlo - Verdi/du Locle/Méry
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-17 21:06:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanFerres/pseuds/ernestdummkompf
Summary: welcome to myM A G N U M  O P U S.no but seriously, this fic is very long.i wrote the... vast majority of this in The Merry Month Of November 2018 (hmm. around 50000 words. in november.i wonder.) however, it took me until literally yesterday in my time zone to actually bring it to a Conclusion. there's one more chapter to write as an epilogue but i'll do that................................................................. Later(tm).(in addition,the last thing i postedwas originally chapter nine, but it made more sense to simply... turn it into a kind of prologue.)title comes... technically from john 14:15-17, in that that is what the anthem iactuallytook the title from is a setting of, but it really comes from tallis'if ye love me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my **_M A G N U M O P U S_**.
> 
> no but seriously, this fic is very long.
> 
> i wrote the... vast majority of this in The Merry Month Of November 2018 (hmm. around 50000 words. in november. [i wonder](https://nanowrimo.org/participants/earltolloller).) however, it took me until literally yesterday in my time zone to actually bring it to a Conclusion. there's one more chapter to write as an epilogue but i'll do that................................................................. Later(tm).
> 
> (in addition, [the last thing i posted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16888992) was originally chapter nine, but it made more sense to simply... turn it into a kind of prologue.)
> 
> title comes... technically from john 14:15-17, in that that is what the anthem i _actually_ took the title from is a setting of, but it really comes from tallis' _[if ye love me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqt005j1dB0)_.

The reason that Rodrigo had not visited Carlo once, after almost a month of separation, had nothing to do with reticence and everything to do with timing. He knew the way it must have looked to an outsider, of course – there was no way in which Rodrigo _couldn’t_ be aware that it seemed, after his apparent switch of allegiance to Filippo and then his actions at the auto-da-fé, that he simply no longer wanted anything to do with Carlo, but this could not have been further from the truth.

At first, Rodrigo had been motivated simply by the fact that Carlo had been truly _angry_ with him at the auto-da-fé. After Rodrigo had got rid of Éboli that night in the garden he had known that Carlo was simply afraid for his future safety if he had given Rodrigo his letters; when he had realised his mistake (if it could even be called a mistake), Carlo had immediately forgiven Rodrigo. No, Rodrigo knew that, after the auto-da-fé, Carlo would not want to see him for a good while.

But that only accounted for about a week of not seeing Carlo. He forgot Rodrigo’s iniquities quickly and forgave them even more readily. The reason that he and Rodrigo still hadn’t seen each other now, after nearly a full four weeks apart, was considerably more complicated. Firstly, getting away from the king had been a near impossibility: beforehand, he had been afforded some liberty. But now that both Filippo and Carlo had misread Rodrigo’s actions, he simply couldn’t get away from him. Planning his own death had practically been out of the question, let alone planting Carlo’s suspicious letters on himself to free the Prince.

And then there was Elisabetta. There was no doubt in Rodrigo’s mind that the Queen needed an ally in the court, somebody who wasn’t her husband and who wasn’t Éboli, who he had never fully trusted even if he had previously liked her, and Rodrigo had become that ally. He truly admired her intensity and temperament, but he was secretly just as wary as any of the servants of it when she turned it on him, as she had done. But she had still agreed to take care of Carlo after Rodrigo died, and in fainting when accused of adultery by the king she had inadvertently given Rodrigo the time away from the king, who had been more demanding than ever after the auto-da-fé, to plant the letters in his own rooms.

Elisabetta had not been happy.

In fact, she had been truly furious. But it had to be said that, when she and Rodrigo didn’t exactly nearly come to blows over it but certainly got into a heated debate, she had admitted that yes, she understood what he was doing. She had told him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t condone it but there was no doubt that she understood. She was in the monastery at San Yuste now, and Rodrigo wished he had been able to actually tell her goodbye, rather than leaving with both of them in tears at the end of an argument.

It was more important that he tell Carlo goodbye, and that was why he was here. It would probably have been less traumatic for both of them if Rodrigo had simply written a letter to give to Elisabetta rather than going in person, not that it would matter for Rodrigo any more soon. It _would_ matter for Carlo, though, and probably for the rest of his life. It was a small matter, in the grand scheme of things, but Carlo didn’t really _have_ any other friends. Nobody except Lerma, at least, since Éboli had tried to have him killed and since the disastrous meeting in San Yuste he could barely stand to be around Elisabetta – so if nothing else, seeing Rodrigo again before he died would be some comfort. Or Rodrigo hoped it would.

As it was, Rodrigo had been pacing at the entrance of the courtyard, below which lay the prison that Carlo was being held in. He didn’t know what to say to Carlo, for once in his life, because even before they were truly friends Carlo was the only person who really got the full brunt of Rodrigo’s unfettered rambling nature. At times it was because Carlo was a captive audience who _had_ to tolerate hearing whatever thoughts had appeared in Rodrigo’s head.

More often, though, it was because Rodrigo was talkative at night, and he and Carlo agreed on so many things, and Carlo was and always had been so good to him in every possible way. Usually, this meant Rodrigo talking to Carlo as he started to doze off, or more frequently as Carlo became increasingly persistent in trying to make Rodrigo be quiet and either go to sleep or kiss him. Rodrigo was nothing if not bulldoggish, but Carlo was _particularly_ good at distracting him from any train of thought, no matter how significant it seemed at the time.

The courtyard that was above Carlo’s prison was being patrolled by guards and as such it was inaccessible to anybody who didn’t have special permission to visit, for obvious reasons. As far as the guards were concerned, there were six that Rodrigo could see but given Carlo’s importance there were probably more. It took a second, but Rodrigo managed to identify their captain, and he brushed past two of them with a sharp nod before approaching the captain.

Rodrigo could not be described as a tall man – only Carlo and Tebaldo were shorter than him, and Tebaldo only by merit of being fifteen years old, meaning that he would probably grow taller than Rodrigo in the near future, and Éboli was tall enough that he had to stand on his toes to be eye level with him – but this particular soldier was more of a mountain than a man. Still, Rodrigo currently had very little to be scared of, given that he wasn’t going to live for much longer, so he removed the letter that he himself had written and sealed with the King’s seal.

“For the infante?” the captain asked, squinting at the sealed missive.

“Yes, from his father.” Rodrigo held his hand out for the letter back, and the guard looked suspiciously at him without returning it. “To be delivered in person,” he added, with the obvious implication of ‘ _and if you value your position and your head, you wouldn’t dare to disobey an order from an emissary of the king of Spain_ ’.

“What’s it say, then?” The captain was asking too many questions, given that Rodrigo wasn’t sure what the King might write to Carlo. To make matters worse, he _still_ wasn’t showing any signs of returning the letter to Carlo, and given the incriminating contents of it, Rodrigo particularly needed it back.

“Why would I know?”

“The king seems to trust you,” the captain said, in a tone that _very_ nearly made Rodrigo reach for his sword, but a closer assessment of the captain made him rethink. Rodrigo barely reached the man’s shoulder, and the captain was also built not so much like a brick but like an entire wall, and he had backup. Put simply, Rodrigo didn’t fancy his chances. “And _I_ certainly know the contents of the letters _I_ send.” Whether the captain was being deliberately manipulative or whether he was just _simple_ , the result was the same. Rodrigo might have appeared calm, but he was a soldier, and he could and frequently did have quite a temper about him.

Regardless, the captain seemed to tire of questioning Rodrigo about what he didn’t want the man to find out was, in fact, a love letter, either that or he managed to correctly read the way Rodrigo’s jaw tightened, and he put it back into Rodrigo’s hand. “It isn’t for me to question,” he shrugged, and Rodrigo hastily secreted the letter back in his doublet. “Leave your weapons here.”

Well, that would take a while.

Rodrigo unfastened his baldric and unstrapped his sword from it, and then began unfastening his doublet, drawing a curious look from the captain. “I have five daggers under here.” The captain almost cracked a smile and he took Rodrigo’s doublet as he unfastened what indeed was five daggers from various points on his torso.

“You can–”

“That’s just under here.”

When the captain looked sufficiently puzzled, Rodrigo produced a final dagger from the inside of his left boot, leaving the guard with an expression midway between amused and impressed, especially given Rodrigo’s small size relative to the number and weight of the weapons about his person, as he returned Rodrigo’s doublet. He put it back on but didn’t fasten it and proceeded towards the stairs that lead down into the prison.

It was cold in the courtyard, it being enclosed and shaded and generally a very good place to imprison somebody as a result of this, and the temperature only fell as Rodrigo descended. Rodrigo had always hated the cold, and if Carlo was also the sort of person who was sensitive to the cold, he would probably have been angry, or angrier than he already was. The fact was, though, that while Rodrigo was extremely sensitive to cold, Carlo liked it. There were two guards before the door to Carlo’s room, in which he had been locked for almost a month, but they paid little attention to Rodrigo, letting him pass by them without interrogating him like the captain had.

The room was almost eerily silent as Rodrigo entered, but even with the noise and the sudden chink of light pouring in through the door, Carlo didn’t acknowledge the fact that somebody else was in the room with him, either because he didn’t care or because he was afraid, Rodrigo assumed. And for once, Rodrigo didn’t know what to say, even though his relationship with Carlo had always been so easy that he didn’t need to think to know what to say to him. But it wasn’t obvious to Rodrigo whether Carlo, slumped over to one side on the bed with his back to the door and his arms wrapped around his knees, was upset, or lost in thought, or simply resting.

When Rodrigo walked over and sat on the floor beside the bed, Carlo still didn’t react. This still had its function, though, as being near to Carlo meant that Rodrigo could get a proper look at him, or as proper a look as was practical in the low light and try to assess how to try to start this conversation that he thoroughly didn’t want to have.

Carlo’s hair, which he had never been able to keep particularly tidy at the best of times, didn’t look like he had washed it since he had been imprisoned. Rodrigo vaguely remembered, from childhood, Carlo’s nurse threatening to tell his father and have him beaten if he continued to refuse to allow her to comb it – a battle which the Prince had somehow won. Even then, he was headstrong. Even for him his hair was ruffled to a point past being unruly, sticking up unevenly on one side as though he had been sleeping on it and then not bothering to fix it when he woke, and it was visibly knotted even without Rodrigo properly able to make out many clear images, between the poor light and his own poor eyesight.

Carlo seemed to have lost weight over the almost-month he had been in prison as well, his shirt hanging off him and open at the neck in a way that exposed half of one collarbone. One of his hands was tangled through his own hair which was probably contributing to how unruly it looked, while his other hand was fisted in the sleeve of his shirt, pulling it down slightly over his shoulder. His face was buried in the crook of his elbow and he looked as though he might be asleep, but Rodrigo could tell from watching the rhythm of his breathing that he was at least half awake. He was just either deep in thought or too upset to move.

Not for the first time, Rodrigo felt dreadful for what had transpired at the auto-da-fê, but it had been necessary to do in order to save Carlo’s life. But Rodrigo might as well have just handed him down a death sentence himself, for all the good imprisonment appeared to have done him and for all the good Rodrigo’s death would likely continue to do him.

He didn’t want to think of that now. Instead, he reached out to touch Carlo’s arm, or his side, but then thought better of it. Carlo dealt poorly with surprise, even if he had managed to give himself some form of armour against it by hiding behind Rodrigo.

“Carlo?” No response. Try again. “It’s me, I’m here.” Rodrigo considered that speaking had given Carlo the warning that he needed that somebody else was there, and as he spoke, he rested his hand on Carlo’s side. He was freezing, uncharacteristically so, and trembled slightly under Rodrigo’s touch. Rodrigo could feel the soft thrum of his breath and his heart through his shirt.

“Rodrigo!” And even if Carlo didn’t sound enthusiastic, because he didn’t, he sounded miserable, he sounded at least reassured that Rodrigo had visited him. From what Rodrigo knew, Carlo hadn’t had a single visitor, not even his father. Thinking about the prince being completely alone for nearly a month with only his own thoughts and torment for company made Rodrigo’s heart constrict, but he tried to ignore the feeling.

“I don’t know how you can stand to visit me here.” Carlo poured himself off the bed and into Rodrigo’s lap, resting his head against Rodrigo’s shoulder. In any other situation, Rodrigo would have joked about Carlo wanting to take advantage over the fact that Rodrigo wasn’t armed so climbing onto his lap was possible, but as it was, there was a lump in Rodrigo’s throat that he could barely swallow around, let alone being able to form words. Instead, he pressed his face against Carlo’s hair as he held him, kissing the top of his head.

“Carlo…” Rodrigo didn’t know what to say, but he knew that Carlo needed him to at least be supportive. He put his arms fully around Carlo, who truly was freezing, and Rodrigo hoped that this was just because of the fact that he was without a doublet and not because he was sick. In any case, Carlo seemed to understand the sentiment, and wrapped his arms around Rodrigo in response, one hand sliding up under Rodrigo’s doublet to grab at the softer fabric of his shirt. At least they were able to hold each other again at last, Rodrigo thought, even though this was almost certainly going to be the last time they would see each other alive.

“I don’t want to live like this.” If Carlo noticed Rodrigo’s muscles suddenly tensing, he didn’t let on. Instead, he carried on speaking. “My love for Elisabetta is torturous; I know it will kill me.” This just felt like Carlo was twisting a knife into a pre-existing wound, but somehow Rodrigo couldn’t be angry. Carlo lacked any social sense at the best of times, and Rodrigo had long since given up on trying to read negative meanings into what he said. He ran his hand gently down Carlo’s back instead. “There’s nothing more I can do, not in prison and not even if my father for some reason decides to release me.”

Even though Rodrigo’s reaction could hardly be described as “snapping”, he still was far from happy. He gently but firmly lifted Carlo’s chin up to force him to look at him, but Carlo was apparently deeply into this train of thought and refused to allow it to be derailed. “It will be fine,” he reassured either himself or Rodrigo, and Rodrigo wasn’t sure which option was worse, given what was soon going to happen.

Carlo seemed to realise that Rodrigo was confused, so he continued: “There is nothing more that I can do.” He sounded resigned, not upset. “But you…” When Rodrigo’s hand dropped from Carlo’s chin to rest on his hip again, Carlo brushed the tips of his fingers against Rodrigo’s cheek, and for a second Rodrigo thought he was going to kiss him (and God, even though it was completely inappropriate at this point he _desperately_ wanted it).

“Rodrigo, I can’t help Flanders now, maybe I never could,” Carlo said, his tone completely matter-of-fact despite the dire subject matter. Rodrigo just stared mutely at him with a combination of horror and pity. “ _You_ can, though,” Carlo said. “And you have to, never mind what happens to me.”

“Carlo, you have no idea what you’re saying!” Rodrigo’s tone was harsh, but it seemed to get Carlo’s attention, and his face softened as he continued: “You don’t know what you’re saying, and you don’t know how much I love you.” This was a clear attempt to make Carlo actually pick up and pay attention to what was being said to him – but Carlo barely seemed to respond, only leaning closer into Rodrigo. “You _will_ get out of here, I promise,” Rodrigo assured him, pressing his face into the crook of Carlo’s neck as he spoke. “I’ve saved your life.”

Or, more accurately, Rodrigo had traded his life for Carlo’s – but mentioning that now wouldn’t help.

_This_ , however, was what it took to finally get Carlo’s attention. He pulled away, putting his hands on Rodrigo’s shoulders and regarding him from a slight distance, as though trying to search Rodrigo’s face for some kind of hidden meaning to his words.

“How?” He almost seemed afraid to ask, and Rodrigo wished this wasn’t the case. “What have you done?” In Carlo’s mind some bargain with the King must have seemed like the only option, and in a sense that was what Rodrigo had done, but he couldn’t bear to spell out what had really transpired when Carlo was still holding onto him.

“Carlo, today we must say goodbye. Forever.” Rodrigo couldn’t bear to look at Carlo as he delivered this news.

In any case, Carlo didn’t give him the chance to. He leaped up and away from Rodrigo, accidentally kicking Rodrigo in the chest in the process, and when Rodrigo was able to look back up again after his head stopped spinning, because even for a sick man Carlo could kick surprisingly painfully, Carlo was hunched over the desk in the corner of the room, sobbing.

“Carlo?” Rodrigo got up and went over to him. Carlo pushed him away when Rodrigo instinctively went to turn Carlo to face him. “Carlo, listen to me. I’m not–” He wasn’t thinking right. “I don’t want this!” He was near tears too now, and that was enough for Carlo to turn and throw himself into his arms. “This is already unbearable,” he said into Carlo’s hair, rubbing his hand gently up and down the infante’s spine as he sobbed. “I don’t want to make it any more difficult for you, but you have to listen.”

Carlo just sniffled, and didn’t say anything, keeping his face buried in Rodrigo’s chest and holding onto him. It was almost as if he would collapse if he even tried to let go of Rodrigo, and Rodrigo thought that he probably would. He kept his arms around Carlo as he continued to speak, not daring to make Carlo look up at him even though he desperately wanted to.

“Carlo, I don’t want this, I truly don’t, but the King has forced my hand.” He waited a moment for Carlo to stop sobbing and to comprehend what he had said, and then lifted up Carlo’s chin to make him look at him. “I don’t want to die.” This was the first time he had allowed himself to even give word to this thought. “And I don’t want to leave you on your own. But if I have to…”

He couldn’t say it a second time, and it felt ridiculous after what he had seen and done in Malta and Flanders and Brabant, but Carlo hadn’t been clinging onto him as though the world would end if he let go in any of those places. “If I have to, then I will be happy to die for you.”

“Rodrigo, what have you _done_?” Carlo was shaking as he buried his face against Rodrigo’s chest again. Rodrigo could tell that this was clearly the only one of the questions he had that he was able to give voice to. Either that or it was the only one that he was willing to acknowledge.

“I have… I have turned the king and the inquisition’s suspicions onto myself,” Rodrigo explained, and although Carlo didn’t lean away from where he was clinging onto him, he made a quizzical noise against Rodrigo’s chest, still hanging onto him with both hands. “Your letters,” Rodrigo explained. Carlo finally looked up, and Rodrigo could tell that he was beginning to comprehend what had happened in the garden.

“I–” He looked like he was going to break down sobbing again.

“ _Don’t_.” Rodrigo wasn’t sure he could bear it if Carlo started crying again, and he was beginning to get the feeling that they didn’t have much time left. “Several suspicious papers from Flanders and Brabant were found in my rooms,” Rodrigo said, his tone completely expressionless.

Behind Carlo and Rodrigo, not that either of them noticed, the door to the cell opened and the muzzle of a flintlock pistol poked through the newly produced aperture. “Now, the King and the Grand Inquisitor believe that I seduced you with talk of revolution and forced your hand in bringing the Flemish deputies to the auto-da-fê.”

“You _didn’t_ , Rodrigo! You didn’t even know that I–” Rodrigo shushed him hastily. “No, _you_ listen to _me_ ,” Carlo snapped, and the change in tone was enough to bring Rodrigo back to earth for a second. “I… If my father has forgiven me, then he will be willing to forgive you. I will go to him, I know he… I know how highly he regards you.” (Neither of them wanted to think about the full implications of that statement but it needed to be pointed out.)

“No, Carlo.” Rodrigo’s voice was kind, but he sounded exhausted to be going through this endless argument. It was impossible for this to end well for both of them. One of them had to die for this to be ended, and the nature of the thing was that it had to be Rodrigo who died. “That’s as good as admitting that I lied to save you. At best you will be taken by the inquisition, and I won’t let that happen, and at worst we will both be killed.”

“I don’t _want_ to live without you!” Carlo sobbed.

“I know,” Rodrigo replied, “and I don’t want you to be unhappy. But the people of Flanders need you, and you cannot save them if you are being tortured by the Inquisition or dead.”

He had seen that the door was open, and, without alerting Carlo to the fact that anything was amiss, he pulled back, briefly resting their foreheads together before stepping away. “You must reign,” he said, taking hold of and kissing Carlo’s hand, and if Carlo realised why Rodrigo was putting so much distance between them and moving nearer to the door so suddenly, he didn’t let on, “and I must die for you.”

As if on cue, there was a gunshot as soon as the words were out of Rodrigo’s mouth. He closed his eyes and waited for a burst of pain followed by the feeling of exsanguination, but it never came and for a moment he thought that he had simply been killed instantly and he had been taken directly to the afterlife. But there was no change in the background noise of the room, nor was there a change in air pressure, or in temperature. He could still smell the gunpowder in the air.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes just a little, and ran his hands down his torso to assess the damage, if there even was any.

No injuries.

He didn’t even have any grazes or bruises, or at least not any new ones, and surely an assassin attached either to the Inquisition or to the King wouldn’t simply _miss_ so easy a target. No, something else had to be wrong. It could have been a warning shot, or maybe–

No.

He had vaguely registered that Carlo was lying on the floor when he had opened his eyes, but he had assumed that he had just passed out in his fright, because that would hardly have been a first. When he had realised that he was uninjured his next priority was reassuring Carlo that everything was going to be fine now and then getting the two of them out of there and running to Flanders via San Yuste.

Carlo was on his side on the floor, grasping at his lower abdomen and with blood rapidly pooling around him, looking stunned as though he somehow didn’t realise what had happened. Some small part of Rodrigo’s brain knew that yes, that was shock, and if he didn’t do something quickly then Carlo was going to die _there_. But fortunately, that part of his brain, presumably the same part that jumped if he was touched unexpectedly and that sometimes woke up crying or sickened because of what he had seen in Flanders and in Malta, quickly took over, leaving the rest of Rodrigo’s consciousness in the figurative dust.

“Rodrigo, I…” Carlo sounded like he was struggling for words and for breath as Rodrigo knelt beside him, removing his own doublet and pulling Carlo’s hand away from the bullet wound. “God–”

“Don’t talk,” Rodrigo said, slightly less gently than was necessary, as he pressed the doublet over the injury in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. Carlo whimpered and then sobbed, grabbing for Rodrigo’s other hand. “I know,” Rodrigo said, more affectionately, pulling his hand away from Carlo’s even though he didn’t want to, so that he could put pressure on the wound with both hands.

Carlo cried out in pain and Rodrigo started trying to console him. He knew that Carlo was frightened and in pain and that as soon as the shock overtook him that he would almost certainly die right there. He also knew that

As he spoke, however, the door was opened again, and Filippo, accompanied by many of the grandees of Spain, as well as Tebaldo and another strangely familiar and suspiciously tall page all burst in. Filippo nearly stepped on Rodrigo, as though not even seeing him, starting to address Carlo as though he was expecting him to still be alive, or as though he had nothing to do with the fact that Carlo was currently half dead and bleeding to death on the floor.

Rodrigo saw the opportunity, even though he was so far gone with a combination of horror and rage that he didn’t know what the opportunity was for, and he took it.

The Count of Lerma was holding something that appeared to be vaguely metallic, and when faced with an infuriated, bloodied Rodrigo he wasn’t going to put up a fight. He had never been in anything more than a minor fistfight as a teenager, and he wasn’t keen to put a start to his military career now.

Rodrigo grabbed what he eventually managed to register was Carlo’s sword as it was being removed from him for some reason a few seconds later and stabbed straight through the nearest person to him without knowing who it was. There was a scream that sounded like it wasn’t even happening in the same universe as Rodrigo currently existed in.

Then, somebody large was disarming him and slamming him down onto the floor, and everything disappeared into a blur. He was loosely aware of screaming, and somebody calling for doctors, and Lerma fleeing back out the door followed by one of the two pages. But whoever was holding Rodrigo must have tired of what he was doing to try to get free, not that Rodrigo was in any control of what was happening around him any longer, and a hand slammed his face into the wall and everything went dark.

Rodrigo didn’t know where or even who he was for the next couple of hours. In fact, it would have been more accurate to say that, after Carlo got shot, even though he was still moving and still physically of the world, that he had also lost consciousness. Outwardly he looked alive, but as he was dragged bodily by two of the guards out of the prison and into the courtyard, he was clearly barely thinking anything, let alone thinking straight. He practically had to be carried through the courtyard to the black-draped carriage that would take him to where he would probably be tortured, and then probably sentenced to death.

He was barely aware of the blood running down his face from being thrown against the wall in the prison, or the pain from his injuries, even as the adrenaline began to drain from his system. The only thing he could truly think of was the fact that Carlo was almost certainly going to die, if he hadn’t died already, and that he just wanted to join him. But his hands were bound behind his back and one of the guards from the prison was practically holding him upright, and even if this _wasn’t_ the case, he was unarmed. Besides which, the guard probably weighed at least twice as much as Rodrigo and could subdue him in a matter of seconds if it came to it.

He swayed from side to side as he tried to force his eyes to focus, but he was too badly injured, and dissociating too much for his body to even begin to obey what his brain was telling it. He barely felt that his hands were his own because he couldn’t immediately see them, and he was sure that if he was forced to get up, then he wouldn’t be able to walk. The inquisition would _love_ that, unfortunately. A weak target was easier to torture, and that was clearly what was going to happen. No trial; he was too much of a risk to the King, and besides which, the letter to Carlo was still in his doublet and surely somebody would snatch that up as soon as they got their hands on it, and the contents of that letter were more than just incriminating.

He couldn’t see out of the window of the carriage to figure out where he was or where the inquisition might be taking him, but he wouldn’t have wanted to anyway. Having an indication of where he was and where he was going would not have been a reassurance in this case; it would just have frightened him more. He hated not being in control in any case, and in this situation, the loss of control would probably lead him to a funeral pyre, and not being burned at the stake. Instead, he let his eyes fall closed and his head droop forward against his chest. The guard didn’t bother continuing to hold him upright, and when Rodrigo slumped forward, he ended up falling from the seat and knocking his face against the seat opposite him. The guard just laughed, and roughly hauled Rodrigo back up by the rope that was tied around his wrists.

The forced ride in the carriage appeared just to be a distraction, however, because Rodrigo knew that they were still in the court when he was dragged out by the guard. It was the same guard as he had been almost joking with before – a massive brick of a man, who looked as though he could break Rodrigo in half without breaking a sweat. He dragged Rodrigo out of the carriage, still holding him by the rope binding his wrists, and into a door that Rodrigo knew he had seen before but until now he hadn’t been aware of what was behind it.

It proved to be a dungeon, which shouldn’t have and didn’t really surprise Rodrigo. Rodrigo was dragged into a cell and thoroughly searched, and then shackled by his right wrist against the wall. A blanket was tossed into the cell with him, and the door slammed shut, all without words being exchanged. In the carriage, Rodrigo had been too stunned and traumatised to even react to what he had seen, but now it was beginning to dawn on him.

Yes, the King was dead now, but so was Carlo. There was no way he would survive that gunshot wound without immediate medical attention, and even though Rodrigo had been trying to keep him from dying when he had been dragged out, there had probably been too much time between him leaving and a doctor arriving for Carlo’s injury to be survivable. And God, that was only if a real doctor _had_ arrived. If Filippo was responsible for Carlo being shot, which Rodrigo became more and more certain he was the longer he mulled the situation over was the case, there would be no doctor coming for him.

It was this idea – the idea that Carlo had died alone and afraid on the floor of a prison, not knowing what was happening around him – that finally managed to break through the wall that Rodrigo had put up between what had just happened. Ordinarily, and for most of his life, Rodrigo rarely cried. He would try to distract himself, and Carlo was usually with him and Carlo was a sensitive man who would cry if somebody cried near him. The last time he had let Carlo see him upset had been at his father’s funeral and Carlo had been of very little use there, even though he had tried to comfort him.

Now, though, thinking that Carlo was dead, Rodrigo couldn’t keep himself from sobbing. He knew that he would almost certainly be joining Carlo soon – the Inquisition didn’t take kindly to regicide – but he couldn’t take comfort in that. Between now and he and Carlo being reunited, there were hours of torture that he struggled to even conceptualise. He would gladly have killed himself first, just to join Carlo again, but there was a guard watching him, so he couldn’t even do that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to chapter two of Too Much Internal Monologue(tm), this time featuring............. lerma! i am truly just writing only internal monologue in this fanfiction but that is just how it be. i never think anything, so you're forced to hear every one of my characters' thoughts on the internet when i post fanfiction of archive of our own.
> 
> also i know alva's name is spelled alba but leave me alone i've spelled it with a v because i can and It's My Fic So I Control The Ways The Names Are Spelled. otherwise... nothing much to report here, honestly.

The Count of Lerma had always considered himself to be a moral man with a good and steady character. He had seen enough at the court, frequently accidentally and even more frequently without the parties involved knowing that he had seen, that he was if not unflappable then at least _very_ difficult to surprise.

This was an exception, however.

He had always thought that Rodrigo was of similar character to him, as well. Lerma rarely heard Rodrigo raise his voice now that he was back from the war, and, especially by comparison to Carlo, he was a very calming presence. This wasn’t to say that Lerma hadn’t occasionally seen him angry, or upset, or generally emotional, but never like _that_.

For now, while he was alone and waiting for Tebaldo and the other page, who looked strangely familiar but who he was sure he had never seen before, to return from the prison so that they could go and warn the queen of what had just happened, Lerma just felt sick. He knew that Rodrigo was a soldier. Logically, he also therefore knew that Rodrigo had killed people in the past and he therefore knew that he was still capable of killing.

However, Rodrigo had always said, both in public and in private conversations, that he had no intention of ever picking up a sword again. Flanders and the Siege of Malta had been too traumatic, he had once said. As well as that, Lerma had accidentally overheard a conversation with Carlo, late at night, in which Rodrigo had said that he regretted ever becoming a soldier. In any case, Lerma knew on some level that Rodrigo wasn’t anywhere near as soft as he seemed. He also realised that he had, until only a few minutes ago, no idea what Rodrigo was capable of.

The King’s doctors were being sent for, as well as the Grand Inquisitor and a priest, and Lerma hoped that they were away by the time the Inquisitor arrived. There was something – or rather a wide variety of things – about the old man that nobody liked, and especially not Lerma. Chief amongst them, though, was the fact that, although he was blind, he seemed to have the ability to make direct eye contact, if it could be called that, with anybody he found himself in the company of.

It seemed that various servants and even members of the court had heard the commotion and seen various noble people suddenly start rushing around the court on what had previously been a still, quiet afternoon. A variety of ladies and gentlemen of the court, as well as some servants who seemed to be looking for something to do rather than work and a couple of pages, had poked their heads out and begun to gather near enough to the courtyard to be able to see what was going on, but still far enough away to give them plausible deniability should anybody arrive and tell them off for snooping.

Lerma tried to ignore them. Instead of even acknowledging his unwanted guests, he continued pointedly looking in another direction – not quite towards the prison but keeping the door visible – and waiting for Tebaldo and the other page. Presumably, Lerma thought, he was also waiting for whoever else would be accompanying them, because if things really _were_ as bad as they had looked in the prison cell, they would require an escort. And there was little doubt in his mind that yes, things really _were_ that bad: Filippo was never armed unless it was with a ceremonial sword and, unfortunately for him, Rodrigo was an almost frighteningly good swordsman.

Really there was no “almost” about whether or not Rodrigo (and specifically Rodrigo’s swordsmanship) was frightening, Lerma continued to think as he saw Tebaldo emerge, followed by the other page and the Duke of Alva. Rodrigo had been in some of the bloodiest and most violent conflicts in recent memory and had come out of it more or less physically unscathed and still alive, somehow, but Lerma knew full well that soldiers returning were rarely all there mentally. From what he knew, Rodrigo had been especially vicious in combat, despite the gentle persona that he affected in the court.

Tebaldo was grasping a bloodied item of clothing – Lerma could just about make out that it was either black or dark green, and he assumed that it must have belonged to Rodrigo. It certainly looked like something he would have worn, at least; it was in a more French style and he knew that Rodrigo had adopted many French fashions in the time he had been in the French court and had ended up bringing them back to Spain.

“We must leave soon,” Alva said, as Tebaldo twisted the doublet around in his hands and the other page looked on in stunned horror. Lerma still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen this other page, but there were other matters at hand and he found himself in the presence of a good many pages anyway. If he was that curious, he could ask in the carriage on the way to wherever the Queen was. “We mustn’t speak here, though.”

Lerma knew that Carlo was not fond of Alva, but he didn’t entirely know why, because, to his mind, Alva was a pleasant enough man. He certainly wasn’t aggressive, and he always took great pains not to offend, and from what Lerma had heard his time in the army had seen him be a popular commander, much like Rodrigo apparently was. In all, there was absolutely no reason, or at least no reason that Lerma was aware of, for Carlo to despise him so much.

The four of them proceeded in silence to where the carriage that was to take them to the Queen, to inform her that, for now, she was the regent and that it was extremely likely that she would be regent for a good while, or at least until her daughter was old enough to take the throne. Tebaldo was still gripping the doublet with both hands and white knuckles as though it was some form of contraband that he absolutely should not have been in possession of, staining his hands slightly with blood.

The two pages climbed into the carriage first, while Alva and Lerma stood outside to discuss what had just happened, and to work out where they were to go from here, if anywhere. “The Queen is in San Yuste,” Alva said, his voice measured and calm even though Lerma could tell that he was at least unsettled if not outright afraid.

“And the infante?” Lerma kept his voice low to avoid alerting anybody to the fact that something was wrong, and the people of Spain were about to discover that their King was dead. “The King,” he added, not sure if he was correcting himself or if he was asking after the health of King Filippo.

“The doctor was still with Carlo when I left.” Alva ducked his head down. “As for Filippo…” He shook his head and crossed himself. Lerma was left feeling confused and numb. Somehow, though, he was not particularly surprised by what was happening.

“But will Carlo survive?” Lerma hissed, lowering his head conspiratorially. “Carlo inheriting the throne is risky enough,” he said. “If Isabella has become Queen…” The idea was frightening, as well as being a potential portent of disaster for the state of Spain. Lerma tried not to think about it, or at least not too hard.

“He was barely conscious when I left,” Alva said, in a deliberately measured tone that if anything made Lerma even more anxious than he had been before. “He was asking where Rodrigo is.” His tone became more pointed. This may well have been what the problem between Carlo and Alva was. Rodrigo was absolutely the most important person in Carlo’s life; somebody who disliked him would also certainly earn Carlo’s ire. “And unfortunately for them both, we just witnessed the Duke–”

“The Duke of Posa is a good man,” Lerma said, because he truly believed it. “You know soldiers better than I do; I’m sure you understand why he did what he did.”

“I do know soldiers,” Alva agreed, still not quite sounding relaxed, “and I know that soldiers are _supposed_ to swear fealty to their King, not to–” But Alva didn’t continue the sentence, instead cutting himself off, not wanting to either start an argument or alert anybody that anything could have happened to the King.

Lerma bowed his head in acceptance. He had learned better than to start an argument with people like Alva and Rodrigo, because both of them were capable of being such firebrands that he would never win because neither of them would ever concede even the slightest bit of ground. “This is not the place to have this conversation,” he said, quietly, and gestured towards the carriage. “If we leave now, we may arrive before the sun rises tomorrow.”

That would give them an advantage, at least. Having the day to prepare to inform the court would mean that Filippo’s funeral could be planned in a less fraught way, and the court could decide how much to tell the people about Carlo’s condition. Currently, however, it was more important that they find out what had happened to Carlo, but not until after Elisabetta had been informed.

And at least it was quiet in the carriage. The other page’s face was hidden in his cloak, while Tebaldo continued fidgeting with Rodrigo’s doublet, as Lerma sat down across from them. “I will be riding ahead on horseback,” Alva said, before drawing the curtain back across and allowing Lerma to sit down. As soon as the carriage lurched off, as fast as it could with three people in it, the second page lowered his hood.

Lerma _knew_ he had recognised them – however, he hadn’t thought even for a moment that it could be the Princess Éboli. She looked pale and angry sat beside Tebaldo, and Lerma hadn’t even the vaguest idea why she had even been there, but at least she would be able to console the Queen at the news of her husband’s death.

Once he seemed sure that nothing bad was going to come to pass from Éboli and not simply another page being in the carriage, Tebaldo stopped turning the doublet over in his hands, and produced a letter from within it. “I think it’s from the King,” he said. “It’s addressed to Carlo, what should I…?” He didn’t seem to know what he was asking, but Lerma knew where to take the inquiry, at least.

“Give it to me, then,” he said. “I can give it to the Queen when we reach San Yuste.”

“It isn’t from the King,” Éboli said, with a remarkable degree of certainty. “That isn’t his writing,” she added, indicating the swooping hand that had written the Infante’s name.

“Then who wrote it?” Lerma asked. This was just inconvenient.

“Who do you think?” Éboli had always clearly considered herself to be above everybody else, and Lerma usually found this trait entertaining. But at a time when the King was dead, and his successor may well be shortly to follow, it was the last thing that he or anybody else needed. “Rodrigo wrote it. That’s his writing, and the King would never have addressed Carlo by name.”

Admittedly, that did make sense. Lerma knew that there was no such thing as a _perfect_ father, but at the same time Filippo had more flaws than good points, at least where his relationship with Carlo was concerned. To his daughter, Isabella, he was a model father when he saw her, but he had never seemed to know what to _do_ with Carlo.

Lerma suspected that this would have happened with Isabella, had he survived long enough to see her grow up, because he couldn’t cope with a distinct human being with likes and dislikes and an attitude different from his own. But of course, now there would be no opportunity to prove this theory. At least there was a chance that Carlo, who would probably take on part of the responsibility for raising his sister, especially given the difference in age between them, would do a better job with her than his father had with him.

“Should I give it to the queen?”

“She can keep it for Carlo, when he starts recovering,” Lerma said, unwilling to deal with the possibility of Carlo also dying so soon after his father. It had happened before in other countries, he recalled, and it never ended well for anybody. At best the country was thrown into turmoil, and at worst it produced a century-long war as a result of the power vacuum. The main point was that Lerma did _not_ want to see that happen to Spain.

“Will Carlo survive?” Éboli was perfectly matter-of-fact about the question, but Lerma still didn’t want to probe the subject too far.

“The Duke of Alva didn’t want to say.” He settled for this – vaguely ominous without giving too much, or even anything at all, away to her. “Although, I do think that if he were to be at risk of death, we would not be leaving currently.” That was as much as Lerma either wanted to say _or_ was able to say on the subject, but the silence spoke for itself. He looked back at Tebaldo, who was still looking at the letter. “Don’t open that,” he said, hastily.

Tebaldo passed it to him. “There won’t be anything suspicious in there,” he added, tucking it into his own doublet.

“You still don’t want to read it,” Éboli said, but her tone was more amused than Lerma’s, who had just sounded vaguely paternal. His own children weren’t quite old enough to have started causing trouble by getting into things they shouldn’t have been looking at, but that letter, if it was from Rodrigo to Carlo, was almost certainly very much not appropriate for Tebaldo’s eyes. Or anyone’s eyes, most likely, except for Carlo’s. In any case, it was not particularly pleasant to think of.

Éboli had a look on her face that suggested that she had heard – and seen – Carlo and Rodrigo up to certain things that they perhaps shouldn’t have been, or that she was at least aware of it. “You haven’t walked in on them,” Lerma said, raising his eyebrows, but he then immediately felt guilty for joking about anything at this time. Tebaldo gave them a wide-eyed look.

“Oh, you knew about it,” Éboli said in a tone of fond amusement when she noted the way that Tebaldo was staring between her and Lerma. “Everybody does; it’s hardly any sort of secret.”

“I knew they were involved,” Tebaldo said, in the tone of voice of a child who wanted to sound like he was more of an adult than he really was, “but I didn’t know…” He gestured to where Lerma had tucked the letter away. “I didn’t know what _sort_ of involved.”

This proved to be the end of both this topic of conversation and of all conversation generally, because all three of them suddenly were hit by not only the enormity of what had just happened but how incredibly inappropriate it felt to be discussing Carlo and Rodrigo’s _activities_ at a time like this. Yes, it was easy to joke about Carlo and Rodrigo, because seeing one of them drag the other out of a room after gradually getting closer and closer to each other over the course of a conversation was _hilarious_ , just intrinsically. They both clearly thought they were being subtle, even though everybody knew exactly what they would be up to as soon as they got to somewhere private. Really, there was something endearing about it. But now Carlo had been shot, and Rodrigo had killed Filippo. If nothing else, it was a vast departure from normal – in fact, so great a change that things would never be able to return to normal.

It was starting to get dark by the time they left Madrid, and suddenly all three of them were completely overtaken by the events of the day. Tebaldo fell asleep first, curling up like a cat and resting his head on Éboli’s lap, and a few minutes after she too fell asleep. Lerma tried to stay awake for a few more minutes, but he drifted off shortly after.

Lerma woke the next morning with the sort of full-body ache born of sleeping in what was already an uncomfortable position in an extremely cold and somewhat rickety carriage that was going at full-pelt down poorly-paved roads or possibly not even down _roads_ at all. Lerma wouldn’t have put it past Alva to know of a shortcut that would take them down some uncomfortable back-roads through a forest. He would have been equally as unsurprised to learn that Alva had taken them on this route without telling them that this was where they were going.

Éboli and Tebaldo were still asleep across from him, Tebaldo still lying with his head on the Princess’ lap, and some part of Lerma found himself wondering when they had got close enough for that to be possible, given that Éboli barely seemed to tolerate anybody touching her most of the time. (He vaguely remembered seeing her look totally disgusted by the fact that she had taken Rodrigo’s hand. The only thing that was more amusing was that, if anything, Rodrigo had looked even _less_ pleased.)

Lerma tried to move to see if it was still dark outside without waking either of his companions, who he was sure would not be impressed if he accidentally woke them. As he moved the curtain – thick and black-lined to keep out light, decorated with the King’s seal and arms on the outside to let anybody looking know just who owned the vehicle – slightly to the side, he saw that the sun was shortly to begin to rise. He could see the reflection on the clouds scudding along the horizon, even if there was no light being cast over the main of the sky. They couldn’t be far away, but it was probably still too early to wake Éboli and Tebaldo, and in any case it was too dark outside the carriage for him to actually be able to tell where they were.

He was too tired to really do anything yet, either. All of his limbs were stiff as well from a night sleeping in his clothes in a carriage with two other people, and his body hadn’t quite woken up. One thing that he didn’t really appreciate, and that none of the court _truly_ appreciated, living in very plush quarters with fires in the winter and thick blankets and many layers of clothes, was just how cold it got at night, but partly because he didn’t have any blankets and partly because there was nobody else near him, he was freezing. He pulled one of the upper layers of his clothing slightly closer around himself and shuddered violently.

Lerma found himself awake for the next half an hour, in any case. It was too cold for him to sleep in any case and after getting what he guessed was about six hours he wasn’t tired enough anymore to be able to ignore the rough motion of the carriage. He instead found his thoughts wandering to whether Rodrigo was even still alive. With Carlo, it was easy enough – he would have the best doctors in Spain and the best medical treatment available, and he was stronger than he had been as a child. Besides that, it was just a single gunshot wound.

On the other hand, Rodrigo would not be treated kindly. The Inquisition were not known for their gentle treatment of their prisoners at the best of times, and Rodrigo had suddenly become a man who had committed Regicide. The Inquisition would no doubt manage to twist around into some sort of religious crime, because they could do that with just about anything, and that was just the first and greatest crime. If word got out about his relationships with either Carlo or Filippo, Rodrigo might well be burned.

There was nothing that could be done now, not with Carlo unconscious. Elisabetta was now very much going to be adrift in a foreign court, and Lerma was sure that the Inquisition would not listen to a woman in any case if they were ordered to release Rodrigo. He just prayed that Carlo would regain consciousness and be informed before Rodrigo was irreparably damaged or even put to death.

At least what was probably the most incriminating evidence was with him, and would soon be with the Queen, who would happily protect him, rather than being in the hands of the inquisition. It was just luck that Tebaldo had even taken Rodrigo’s doublet – but if the letter had been discovered it could have been a very different and much more unpleasant story.

Now that he had boarded this train of thought, Lerma _wished_ he could go back to sleep. He didn’t want to think about either Carlo _or_ Rodrigo suffering, and it was inevitable that Elisabetta would be stricken too, because she didn’t hate Filippo. Of course, she probably didn’t _love_ him – that was too much to expect of a woman who had been brought over from France to a court where she didn’t speak the language and married to a man with a child older than her. But Lerma knew that she _did_ care about him and his feelings.

In any case, being widowed at so young an age, and her daughter losing her father before she even got to know him, would be traumatic for her. At least they had Éboli with them – he knew that they were close, and it would be a relief to have a friendly face by her side in what would suddenly be transformed into a completely alien court.

The sun was really starting to come up now, purple and orange just beginning to creep across the edges of the horizon and illuminate the small clouds. Now it was probably justifiable to wake Tebaldo and Éboli, because they would be arriving shortly. He gently shook Tebaldo’s shoulder, and after a few seconds he uncurled like a startled cat, frowning across at Lerma before sitting up and resettling his clothing. The fact that Tebaldo was no longer lying on her skirts as he had been throughout the night combined with the movement beside her seemed to rouse Éboli too, and she appeared to shake herself awake.

She probably looked the best out of the three of them. Lerma was aware that he probably looked bleary, and Tebaldo looked extremely small, pale, and sleepy, but she barely looked as though anything out of the ordinary had happened to her. Her hair was slightly escaping from her head-dress and her skirt was a little rumpled from having Tebaldo’s head resting on it, but that would be an easy enough fix when they reached the monastery. Tebaldo, on the other hand, was slightly stained with blood and Lerma certainly looked like he had recently experienced something unpleasant.

There was no telling what sort of state Alva would be in when they arrived, either – he had been riding all night through an extremely difficult country, and before that he had witnessed the death of the King. He would be in a better state than Lerma, probably, due to the fact that he was a soldier, but he couldn’t help but expect him to look a little rough when they saw each other again out of the carriage.

It was a little under an hour later when they reached the monastery of San Yuste, and the enormity of the task that was at hand for the three – or four, counting Alva – of them suddenly struck Lerma. When he looked across at them, he could see that Tebaldo and Éboli were almost certainly having similar thoughts.

But the Queen was there to receive them when they arrived, and somehow that was reassuring to all three of them. Alva had gone to clean himself up, having become completely splattered with mud and being completely unpresentable to anybody, let alone to the Queen Dowager of Spain to tell her that she had just become widowed, that Carlo may have died and her daughter might be Queen now in the intervening night because the situation was that bad, and that in any case because Carlo was unconscious and Isabella was a child, that she was going to be the Queen Regent of Spain for at least a while, if not several years.

“Lerma?” She looked confused and unsettled, and her daughter, clinging to her skirts and peeking out from behind her mother, mirrored this expression. “Is the infante not with you?” Lerma didn’t know what she had been expecting, but this was almost certainly far from it. Fortunately, his expression gave away that this was something they should not be discussing with as young a child as Isabella, who might well have been the Queen by now, there.

Elisabetta briefly leaned down to speak to the princess, and then straightened up again. “Isabella,” she said gently. “Why don’t you go and show Tebaldo the gardens?” When Isabella looked reticent and Tebaldo hastily wiped the dried blood off his hands, she continued: “We won’t be long, and you can come and join us when we’ve all talked.”

Isabella seemed to accept this, because for a young child being allowed to join a group of adults, having a conversation about whatever it was adults talked about, was extremely exciting. She took Tebaldo’s hand and began not so much guiding him as dragging him bodily towards the gardens. “I fear that we should not speak out here,” Elisabetta said, once her daughter and the page were out of sight.

“We should wait for the Duke of Alva,” Éboli said, and then rapidly fell silent again. Elisabetta took Éboli’s hand in both of hers, and Lerma got the joint impressions that something had transpired between the two of them that they had suddenly resolved in seeing each other again and that this change had rendered him surplus to requirements.

“Lerma, come with us,” Elisabetta said, and indicated the door leading towards the monastery. Lerma followed the Queen and the Princess in, and found Alva, having washed and changed his clothes, waiting for them. The Queen clearly knew that something was very wrong, just from the looks on Lerma and Alva’s faces, but as far as she knew _now_ , her husband was still alive. Neither of the men wanted to tell her the truth, but one of them was going to have to.

She somewhat changed the script in any case, by sitting down and then immediately asking, “Is the Duke of Posa dead?” When Lerma and Alva looked at each other, clearly somewhat thrown by the unexpected question, she pulled a folio of papers from somewhere within her dress and handed them to Alva. “From the Duke,” she explained.

“May I?” Alva indicated the catch on the folio. When Elisabetta nodded, he began removing various letters from it. “The Duke is not dead,” Alva said, putting the letters on the arm of the seat without opening them (a wise choice – they were from Rodrigo to Carlo, and this was territory that had already been thoroughly discussed). “However, we have worse news from the court.”

“Then what happened?” Elisabetta asked. She reached over to the folio and found one specific paper that Alva had overlooked while he was sorting through Rodrigo’s letters, and indicated it. “This is his will. He fully expected to be killed,” she said.

“Then why ask after Carlo?” Lerma asked, puzzled.

“It was Carlo and not you that I was expecting,” she explained.

This obviously confused matters somewhat, especially for Alva. He had spent the night trying to keep himself awake by mulling over what had happened in the prison and had arrived at the conclusion that Rodrigo’s plan had been to assassinate the King all along, and then to install Carlo on the throne as a pawn.

There was a brief silence as Alva considered the importance of these documents. “He thought he would be killed by the Inquisitor?” he asked quietly, looking across at the queen and showing the document to Lerma. _In a sense,_ both he and Lerma found themselves thinking, Rodrigo hadn’t been wrong.

“This is conjecture,” Elisabetta said, slightly sharply. “Since you are here and not my son, as I was expecting, I can assume that something went wrong.” Or several things. Two nobles of the court and an exiled princess didn’t ride a considerable distance through the night just to tell the queen that a man _wasn’t_ dead if they didn’t know that he was going to die.

“The Inquisitor’s assassin shot Carlo, and not Rodrigo.” Alva could barely be heard above the roar of the fire, for fear that somebody was eavesdropping outside. “When we left, he was still alive, but…” He let the sentence trail off, but Elisabetta clearly got the meaning. She displayed no outward emotion, but gripped Éboli’s hand tighter.

“And the King?” she asked.

“The King was not so lucky,” Lerma continued.

“By the assassin?”

“No.” Alva spoke up this time, having stopped sorting the letters back into the folio (because Carlo would want these, if he regained consciousness). He was clearly weighing up the best option for how to break this news to Elisabetta, but he decided that doing so as quickly as possible was his best bet. “By Rodrigo.”

Completely methodically, as though this news was no great surprise to her, Elisabetta extended her hand for the folio. When Alva returned it to her, rather than tucking it back into her clothing, she kept hold of it. “What do you want us to do?” Alva continued. “Carlo is incapacitated, and your daughter is not yet old enough to rule of her own accord.” He foresaw a change to the Salic law in the near future if Carlo survived, but that too was conjecture.

“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” Elisabetta said slowly, “but I would like it known. Have my husband’s rooms searched, as well as the Inquisitor’s.”

“But–”

“If the Inquisitor tried to have the heir-apparent killed then he is an enemy of the state. All his papers, and all of Filippo’s.”

“What about Carlo and the Duke?” Alva asked.

“Where is the Duke?” Elisabetta asked.

“With the inquisition.”

“I don’t know how much of their correspondence I have here.” She indicated the folio. “But I cannot imagine that this is all of it. I want all of their letters to be brought here as well.”

Alva, who had stood up, foreseeing that he and Lerma were about to be ordered out, bowed. “The Duke of Posa–”

“Is a good man, who deserves far better than what he is about to go through and may already be experiencing,” Elisabetta said, cutting him off. Alva knew better than to argue, and instead backed down and changed the subject entirely.

“What about the King? Carlo, I mean?” he asked.

Elisabetta thought for a moment. “Once he is strong enough to be moved,” she replied, “he is to be brought here. I don’t want him recovering in the court; he won’t be safe there.” And once he found out what had happened to Rodrigo, he would want to go and kill the people responsible himself. Keeping him away from the court would give him time to recover.

Alva nodded. “And the Duke?” he asked, slightly more ominously.

“While I am unable at present to help the Duke, he is still my trusted friend and, I believe, has been imprisoned unfairly.” Elisabetta responded coldly, but she also knew that Alva must have known the contents of Rodrigo’s letters to Carlo. “While I am not in a position to do anything to help him materially,” she said, in a slower and more considered tone, “I do not wish for his good name to be slandered.”

Alva opened his mouth to speak, and Lerma began hoping that the ground would open up under either his own feet or those of the Duke of Alva, so that either way he wouldn’t have to continue to hear this conversation. Elisabetta cut him off: “More importantly, nor would your _King_.”

This seemed to silence him, which Lerma was thankful for. Elisabetta waved a hand to dismiss the two of them. “You may leave us.” Alva bowed, and moved to do so.

“Before we go,” Lerma said, reaching into his doublet and removing the letter he had kept. “From Rodrigo to Carlo.” He gave it to Elisabetta, who opened the folio and put the letter into it, clearly glad to have something to do. Lerma bowed and followed Alva out of the room, leaving Elisabetta and Éboli alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one thing that i occasionally like to do, when i am writing fanfiction set in The Historical Past Times, is to show that actually i am studying for a degree (and then planning to go on and do a masters and a doctorate after i graduate) for something, and that that something is "writing historically accurate fanfiction". thus: a bit of a reference to catherine de' medici, who... truly was that way and truly _was_ elisabetta's mother. stay tuned for more Historically Accurate-ish Content in the future but NOT in this chapter.
> 
> anyway: keep an eye out for pedro. he's A Surprise Tool That Will Help Us Later.

“Will Rodrigo survive this, do you think?”

As soon as the two men had left Elisabetta and Éboli in the chamber on their own, the Queen had immediately abandoned her appearance of strength. It was a trait that she had borrowed from her mother, but that had never come organically to her as it had Catherine de’ Medici and it was a miracle that she had been able to maintain the affectation for as long as she had. She recalled her mother at breakfast ordering the deaths of hundreds of traitors and supposed traitors without even pausing in her meal and found herself wondering, for possibly the first time, if her brazenness had been affectation.

If it was, she had never shown weakness around her daughters.

It was in the French court that she and Rodrigo had first met. They had been young, both of them. At that time, Rodrigo had not yet lost his father or served in the Siege of Malta, both of which had set him on the path to what he had become now. For her part, Elisabetta was not yet betrothed to Carlo, or to Filippo for that matter.

Rodrigo had mentioned Carlo then. The first time it had seemed unremarkable, but after the second and third times Elisabetta had seen through his façade to what his feelings _really_ were for his apparent friend. Had they both been in the French court, Elisabetta would happily have been a go-between for them. It was possible, now that Carlo was king, and presupposing that both of them survived, that they would no longer need to hide their relationship – or at least not quite as much as they currently did.

“You know the Duke,” Éboli said, in a tone that almost reassured Elisabetta. “He’s seen worse – he’s probably _done_ worse.”

Elisabetta struggled to reconcile the idea of Rodrigo – who had always been so gentle and kind to her and especially to Carlo – fighting in a war. The angriest she had seen him, even though she hadn’t been entirely aware of it, was when she had fainted in the King’s chamber. He had seemed vengeful then, yes, but he had been calm with it and hadn’t really raised his voice. Even so, Elisabetta couldn’t imagine that being him at anything but his most infuriated. The idea that Rodrigo was capable of killing anybody or anything seemed at odds with his nature.

“Exactly – I know the Duke,” Elisabetta replied. “But that just makes me fear for him more.”

“He certainly isn’t above endangering himself,” Éboli said, trying to reassure her but completely missing the mark, “but he wouldn’t say anything that would endanger Carlo.”

“That isn’t what I’m worried about,” Elisabetta replied. “Rodrigo can handle himself and I know he wouldn’t give any information about the King away, and when we have all his letters that just further ensures his safety,” she said. “I’m worried about _him_ , personally.”

Elisabetta had seen a steady stream of victims of the inquisition, released because the charges were false but who had no less been tortured, and those that she had seen at the auto-da-fés. They left angry and defiant and returned barely able to speak, completely broken from the experience and having to be watched night and day to ensure that they didn’t fling themselves from the castle ramparts or high rooves or walls to their deaths. For those who were eventually burned in an auto-da-fé, death seemed to be a welcome friend rather than a feared enemy. And none of those people, men or women, had killed a king.

Éboli seemed to take her meaning. For some reason she had not been present at the disastrous auto-da-fé where Carlo had been arrested, but she had been in Spain almost her entire life. She had seen more than her fair share of auto-da-fés, under both Carlo’s grandfather and under Filippo, and she too had seen the victims of the inquisition. She understood, and even if Rodrigo had gone down in her estimation since threatening to kill her and then cowing out at the last moment, even she couldn’t bring herself to believe that Rodrigo deserved that, nor anybody else.

“He won’t know if…” Éboli trailed off and gazed down at the folio of letters that Elisabetta still held. What she meant didn’t need to be stated.

“Then he is in the same position as we are, until the King arrives.” This was not a reassuring though, Elisabetta knew that. But at the same time, it was better than imagining Rodrigo in some private level of Hell that had seemingly been constructed specifically for him while on the surface everybody else was able to go about their business knowing one way or the other whether Carlo was safe.

Alva, meanwhile, was in less of a philosophical or even sympathetic mood as he and Lerma returned to the stables. They had essentially been ordered from the Monastery, and they both knew that their presence generally was not wanted. Besides which, the King would also need an escort, presupposing that he was still alive, so they were going to leave Éboli and Tebaldo with the Queen, seeing that they were both wanted, and ride back to Madrid themselves.

Alva did not like being dismissed, and especially not in the way in which the Queen had dismissed him. Lerma was more accustomed to it, and so did not share his friend’s anger as the grooms saddled up two fresh horses for them, instead listening to Alva’s ranting without offering his own comment.

“I do not care for the Duke of Posa,” Alva growled, as soon as the grooms had finished saddling the horses, at record speed so that they could get away from the complaining nobleman. While Alva was invariably good to other soldiers – with the apparent exception of Rodrigo – his treatment of civilian menials left a good deal to be desired. Lerma, on the other hand, had slipped the two grooms some extra money for their prompt work and as an apology for his companion’s rudeness to them, and they had seemed grateful.

“The King does,” Lerma replied simply, leading his horse over to a small tree-stump. He was not as tall as Alva, but he had taken the taller horse. Between this and the fact that he was not as accustomed to equestrian activity as Alva, standing on the tree stump was the only way he would be able to get onto the animal.

Alva had mounted by the time Lerma was stood on the stump and he was now leading the horse around in small circles, as he was as keen as his rider to get moving and refused to stand still. Lerma’s mare, on the other hand, was a far steadier animal, and stood patiently as her rider mounted. She ambled over to Alva as soon as Lerma nudged her on, though, which was a relief. Lerma had ridden many exceptionally lazy horses in his time at the court, but this one was just permissively calm.

Alva leaned elegantly over to one side to adjust one of the stirrups. “I suppose one must content oneself with the fact that the Duke of Posa is unlikely to continue to cause us problems, then,” he said. For a second, Lerma was unable to completely grasp his meaning, but he shot Alva a disapproving look when he suddenly understood the implication of what he had said.

“Surely you don’t _mean_ that, Alva?” Lerma said. “Especially not as Rodrigo is an intimate friend of the King.”

“Yes, an _intimate friend_.” Alva said it as though he were uttering a curse.

In Lerma’s mind, the most frustrating part was that Lerma didn’t know whether he was referring to Filippo and Rodrigo’s tumultuous friendship or his more mutual and loving relationship with Carlo. The whole palace had now heard that the last words Rodrigo had said to Filippo had been to berate him. Éboli had seemingly wanted revenge on Filippo for something, but Lerma didn’t yet know what. He also wasn’t sure that he _wanted_ to know.

Either way, Lerma didn’t like the tone that Alva took. “I doubt you’ll be losing your rank within the court completely.” Lerma’s tone was uncharacteristically prim, even for him. However, the vague phrasing of what he had said meant that it could be applied, by the right mind, to either situation. It also made it obvious that this was the end of the conversation.

Alva made a noise that Lerma might have described as a laugh if he was asked, and lead on out of the Monastery. Lerma urged his horse on and drew up alongside him. “When we arrive, who should deal with what?” he asked.

“I shall make arrangements for the King to be transported to San Yuste, of course,” Alva said. Lerma hadn’t realised until precisely that second that it was possible to hear another person’s ego. “You can collect the letters, as the Queen ordered.”

This, in fact, put Lerma, and consequently everybody else, at an advantage. Unlike Alva, _he_ was extremely fond of Rodrigo, even if he didn’t want to hear (either accidentally or on purpose) all of the details of Rodrigo’s sex life. Letting _him_ collect Carlo and Rodrigo’s correspondence put them at less risk of being betrayed and consequently meant that he and Alva were less likely to be tried for collusion. In general, everybody benefitted from him giving way to Alva’s inflated sense of self.

It was impractical and probably physically impossible for the horses to gallop all the way back from San Yuste to Madrid, but that was still what both Alva and Lerma wanted to do. Instead, they compromised by cantering most of the way, and didn’t stop for longer than it took for one to catch up to the other or for the horses to catch their breath when they were inadvertently pushed too hard by their riders. The result was still that the two men did not beat the news that Filippo was dead, and that Rodrigo was in the custody of the Inquisition to the court.

Of course, everybody was able to put together the death of Filippo and the imprisonment of one of his apparently closest courtiers to understand that Rodrigo, even if he wasn’t directly responsible for the death of the King (which he unfortunately was), must have had something to do with it. People at court also suspected him of having a hand in the shooting of Carlo. Even Alva didn’t approve of that – even if he didn’t like Rodrigo, even he didn’t think that he deserved to be blamed for a crime he did not commit.

The only people who didn’t seem concerned or to be reflecting the general mood of the court at all were the King’s doctors. There were two of them – one sent for from Flanders who had arrived at the court at around the same time as Alva and Lerma, while the other had been his doctor from his youth, who was used to Carlo’s customary poor health. When Lerma arrived to collect Carlo’s papers, even though Carlo was still unconscious, neither of them seemed more concerned than was to be expected.

“The gunshot wound isn’t infected,” the Flemish doctor explained, while his colleague fluttered around Carlo in a way that made Lerma suspect that he wasn’t _really_ doing anything of import but didn’t want to get into a conversation. “He sometimes stirs or seems on the verge of waking, but I don’t think he will for at least another week.”

“He was a weak child,” the other doctor said, “and a month of imprisonment has done him very little good at all.” This second doctor was more pessimistic about the outlook for Carlo, yes, but somehow what he was saying didn’t seem to contradict with what the Flemish doctor was saying. He just knew Carlo better, by the sound of it.

Lerma had intended to be in and out as quickly as possible – just getting Carlo’s letters and then leaving immediately after – but he had been in Alva’s company and only Alva’s company for too long. He was happy to stop to talk to either of the doctors, and even though they were looking after not just a very sick person but the King, they both seemed to be happy to have a conversation.

Lerma made a cursory effort to sort through papers for anything that could be either to or from Rodrigo, but when he realised that he would have to read them and would therefore have to read things that he did _not_ want to read, he stopped very sharply. The doctor who had been with Carlo since his childhood clearly knew the reason for this and he cast Lerma an amused look as he opened a letter only to start reading it and immediately put it back down again.

“I can’t see that the King will be impressed when he finds out about…” The doctor nodded towards the letter, clearly suspecting that Carlo might well have been aware of what was happening around him. He didn’t want to discuss Rodrigo’s situation too publicly in any case, because the Inquisition could have been anywhere, and he didn’t want to be summoned before them for a variety of reasons.

“The Queen wasn’t pleased either,” Lerma admitted, but he also didn’t want to imagine Carlo’s reaction.

He had seen Carlo angry only once in his life, and he intended to keep it that way for as long as possible. The circumstances hadn’t been too different, either – Rodrigo had been injured in Malta and sent word back to Carlo. Clearly, Rodrigo hadn’t intended to frighten Carlo, or cause him undue upset, but the end result had been Carlo flying off the handle all the same and threatening to go to Malta himself and kill the people responsible.

The fact that the people responsible for this latest injury were probably also _torturing_ Rodrigo as they spoke, and the fact that this was probably going to have a pronounced effect on Carlo, was something that Lerma didn’t even want to consider. When he looked across at the doctors, he saw that both of them were clearly having the same thought as him.

Even though he didn’t particularly want to, Lerma found himself returning to searching through Carlo’s papers for letters from Rodrigo, because at least it was something to do that wouldn’t mean that he was thinking about how Carlo was going to react to what he was going to learn when he regained consciousness. “The Queen wants Carlo taken to San Yuste,” he said, finally, to break the silence.

The two doctors looked at each other. “When?”

“Once he is strong enough,” Lerma replied. “She didn’t say any more than that.”

“Better to leave it to our discretion,” Carlo’s childhood doctor agreed. Lerma looked across at him. “I won’t say ‘as soon as he is conscious’,” he said thoughtfully, “but once he is conscious, we can at least start making the arrangements.”

“Excellent,” Lerma replied, looking at one of the letters. “The Duke of Alva will be the one discussing this with you, though,” he added, suddenly remembering himself. “I am only here to collect letters.” He indicated the bundle of letters that he now held.

“Then we had better let you be on your way.” Carlo’s childhood doctor didn’t say this _coldly_ so to speak, but it was obvious from the tone of his voice that he was keen to get Lerma out of the way as soon as possible, so Lerma nodded, and after a quick glance at Carlo – he was still unconscious, and not even his facial expression had changed during the time Lerma had been in the room – he left to go in search first of Rodrigo’s letters, and then Filippo’s.

He was beginning to think that he might need to be accompanied by Alva to go and collect the Inquisitor’s papers, because the old man absolutely terrified him (as well as just about everybody else in the court). Even the brief sight of him he had had when he had come to request an audience with Filippo had been more than enough. But apparently even if he didn’t _like_ Alva, he didn’t despise him, so Alva was more likely to be able to get the papers that they needed without incurring the Inquisitor’s ire. Or at least without incurring too much of it – the man’s temper could be triggered by the merest nothing, even if he pretended to keep it in check.

Alva was waiting just outside the door for him, trying to create the impression that he hadn’t just been eavesdropping on Lerma’s conversation with the two doctors. Rather than outright stating that he knew that Alva had been listening in, however, Lerma just cast him a wry look and let Alva go into the room. He proceeded down the hall towards what had been Rodrigo’s rooms, but found himself coming face to face – or rather face to upper torso – with an extremely large guard.

“What are you doing here?” Of course, he seemed to know that Lerma was a friend of Rodrigo’s, and of course he didn’t seem to want him snooping around the rooms that he was guarding. “The Inquisitor has ordered nobody be allowed into Posa’s rooms.”

“The Queen of Spain has personally ordered me to search the Duke of Posa’s rooms for his papers,” Lerma said, thinking that the Queen would trump the Inquisitor.

“And why would that be?”

Of course it didn’t work. Lerma had to think quickly, but fortunately running around after Filippo for years had made him _excellent_ at this. “I think…” He leaned in conspiratorially and checked either side of himself as though what he was about to share was some great secret that should not have been known. “I can’t say, but I think she wants him put to death.”

The guard’s eyes widened, and he indicated to Lerma to tell him more. He was just being nosy now, but Lerma was still cautious of allowing this to filter back to Rodrigo. The Queen would understand, but Rodrigo would be in the worst possible position right now and would probably believe that Elisabetta wanted him dead. “She reckons he was planning to kill Filippo all along,” Lerma explained, making an effort to look sad. “She wants to search his papers herself.”

The guard looked like he wanted to search Rodrigo’s papers himself too – but he let Lerma into Rodrigo’s rooms, and didn’t stand over his shoulder as Lerma searched, instead hovering near to the door as though he couldn’t wait to get Lerma out of his hair. Presumably, Lerma tried to reassure himself when the guard started getting unnerving, he just wanted to finish work for the day and Lerma was getting in the way of that.

“I apologise for this,” Lerma said, sorting through a collection of letters and loose notes that he _wished_ Rodrigo hadn’t left lying around where any idiot could read them. “But the Queen…” He trailed off and tried not to react as he accidentally read a particularly explicit phrase in one of the letters, hastily folding it closed and stowing it away safely.

“Well, I can’t imagine he’ll be causing trouble for much longer.” The guard punctuated this with a sharp, unpleasant laugh. When Lerma looked puzzled, or troubled, or probably both, he continued: “Well, if the _Queen of Spain_ wants him dead, he doesn’t have a long legacy ahead of him.”

He walked over and looked at one of the letters that Lerma was sorting through but made a disgusted sound when he saw it. For a second, Lerma was afraid that he had seen Carlo’s name on it, but if he had the guard gave no indication. Instead, he just crumpled it and threw it onto the fire. “But looking at that, he didn’t have one in his future anyway.” Clearly, he expected Lerma to laugh, but Lerma just stared at him. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

Lerma continued his task in silence and finished in a matter of minutes. He couldn’t get out of there quickly enough, all things considered, and looked around himself for Alva. The guard followed him out, and, after escorting him far enough away that he couldn’t head back to Rodrigo’s rooms without alerting another guard as to his presence, went off in another direction.

Alva wasn’t far away, fortunately. In fact, he was waiting outside of the room Carlo was in, speaking to one of the two doctors. When he saw Lerma, he waved him over, and fortunately the doctor made an excuse and disappeared back into the room to tend to his patient. “We are going to need the Queen’s personal support,” Lerma said quietly. “If we don’t go about this completely right, I _very_ much doubt that Rodrigo will survive whatever ordeal the Inquisition are putting him through.”

“If he isn’t saved…” Alva grimaced.

“The King will never forgive himself, or us,” Lerma finished for him. “I know.”

“This is far greater than just that.” Alva’s expression was now completely serious, and if Lerma had been beginning to get nervous as he had approached the Duke, his anxiety had now reached its fullest point. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. “I may not agree with the Duke – with Rodrigo – but even I can separate my personal opinion of him from the fact that the Inquisition are almost certainly subjecting him to unimaginable horrors.” And Alva had been one of Filippo’s favoured attack dogs for years – he knew what the Inquisition were capable of.

“But you said yourself, he is responsible for our current predicament,” Lerma said. He wasn’t trying to start an argument – he was just confused by Alva’s apparent flip-flopping. Fortunately, Alva seemed to understand this.

“And _you_ said it _your_ self,” Alva replied. “I know soldiers, and I have known Rodrigo in particular from childhood.” Alva had been friends with Rodrigo’s father, before the previous Marquis’ tragic death. “Yes, he is uncommonly devoted to Carlo, he has been for most of his life.” Lerma couldn’t imagine a scenario where Rodrigo wasn’t devoted to Carlo above everybody else on earth, but he was prepared to let that remark go without questioning it, because Alva sounded like he was about to make a particularly powerful point. “But it was always his devotion to his King and his country that lead him into action.”

Lerma nodded, looking off down the hallway towards Rodrigo’s rooms.

“In fact,” Lerma continued, “Rodrigo’s determination to serve his King was a point of contention between him and Carlo. Carlo wanted him to stay–”

“–but Rodrigo wanted to fight, I know,” Lerma said. Rodrigo and Carlo had both told him the story. Really, it explained a lot about the extent to which Carlo leaned on and clung to Rodrigo when they were together, besides being extremely touching.

“Regardless, once we have Filippo and the Inquisitor’s papers, we should be better placed to assist him, and more so when Carlo regains consciousness,” Alva said, tapping his cane against the flagstones on the floor.

“Did he look any better, do you think?”

“He was certainly half way conscious,” Alva said. “But he seemed to be in pain. He certainly won’t be ready to leave soon, in any case.” Alva began to lead the two of them off down the hallway to first Filippo’s rooms, before they went and barged in on the Inquisitor. Certainly, he would be unimpressed – but the fact that they had orders from the Queen, currently the highest authority in the land with Carlo incapacitated, would mean that they had the upper hand.

Of course, there was no way that Lerma could have known that what he had said to the guard, and what the guard had seen while he was keeping an eye on him as he searched Rodrigo’s papers, could have had any immediate effect, good or bad, on Rodrigo’s situation. There was also no way that he could have known where Rodrigo was being held by the Inquisitor. Unfortunately for him, however, the Inquisitor had ordered that the Duke of Posa was too dangerous to be sent to any of the properties that belonged to the Inquisition.

Instead, he was to be kept and tortured in the court. Unfortunately for Rodrigo, Lerma, Elisabetta, and just about everybody except for the Inquisition and their allies, the guard who had been at the door to Rodrigo’s rooms knew exactly where Rodrigo was being held. _Very_ unfortunately for Rodrigo, Lerma, Elisabetta, and just about everybody who wasn’t aligned with the Inquisition, he was also an inquisition spy.

Fortunately for Rodrigo, but unfortunately for the Inquisition, he had no access to any of Rodrigo’s papers. If he hadn’t seen and then been immediately disgusted by the words on the letter to God-only-knew-whom, then he would have had at least one paper, but as it was, his knee-jerk reaction in destroying it had cost him some vital leverage.

Unfortunately for him, Rodrigo had been weakened by a couple of days of torture, although he was still stony and reticent despite the fact that he had been tortured to the point of being barely conscious and barely able to recognise who people were, and part that to the point of hallucination. It would be exceptionally easy to get him to give up the name of his lover.

The dungeon where Rodrigo was being held was completely silent, which was pleasing to all the guards stationed there. While having a prisoner who sobbed and begged and gave up all the necessary information immediately was wonderful for the inquisition, keeping them in imprisonment until they were burned in an auto-da-fé meant that the dungeon was frequently an unpleasantly loud place. Prisoners would usually be weeping and screaming and begging for mercy in a way that was grating to the ears of even the most permissive guard.

But Rodrigo was alone in the prison. He was too high-profile and supposedly dangerous a prisoner to be allowed any contact with any other prisoners, and besides which, he had maintained silence, just occasionally growling with pain when he was forced to put weight on an injury. He hadn’t spoken a word since he had been imprisoned and he was showing no sign of weakening. If it hadn’t been so frustrating for everybody involved, it would have been impressive.

Not that he looked particularly impressive in the dungeon. He was as small and slight as he always had been and especially now a large man – which this guard certainly _was_ – could probably have crushed his skull with his hand. Rodrigo was slumped in one corner of his cell, one arm drawn up above his head at an angle that must have been hurting, and his head forward against his chest. Even in the low light, however, the guard could see that his eyes were open, even if they were bloodshot, and that Rodrigo was glaring at him.

“Are you here to relieve me of my duty, Pedro?” The guard watching over Rodrigo – not that Rodrigo was doing anything in particular, and not that he had been for the past couple of days between sessions of torture – spoke with a clearly ironic tone. Of course Pedro wasn’t going to be relieving him of a very dull duty: he was far too important. He would probably be guarding the King or the Queen next.

“Oh, I’ve something _far_ better than that.” Pedro looked across at Rodrigo and saw, much to his satisfaction, that he was looking at him, even if he was pretending not to. “Orders from the Queen.” He raised his voice a little to say this, and Rodrigo raised his head. He leaned down to address the other guard, whispering to him so that Rodrigo wouldn’t be able to hear.

The other guard left very quickly, bowing to Pedro and casting a glance that was filled with disgust towards Rodrigo. Despite himself, Rodrigo felt all of the muscles in his body contract with fear, and he gripped the chain of the shackle attaching him to the wall of the cell.

Up until now, Rodrigo thought that he had done a good enough job pretending not to be afraid of the Inquisition and his torturers. He hadn’t been confrontational, of course, because he knew that trying to get into a fight would just cause them to bring the tortures down worse upon his head, but he had said absolutely nothing no matter what he had been threatened with and what had been done to him. But this guard frightened him.

The initial period of not recognising other people when they came for him had passed, but he was still hallucinating from the pain. Currently, it was nothing particularly ominous: just a rabbit on its hind feet that he knew for a fact wasn’t there standing up on its hind feet in the corner of the cell. But the rabbit wasn’t the first, even though it was certainly the least worrying. In fact, there had been various other images, for the most part of things that he had seen in Flanders, some that had nearly made him vomit, that had appeared in his line of sight. He was used to ignoring them, but he didn’t mind this one.

It dissipated as soon as Pedro walked over and kicked at the door of the cell with his boot. Rodrigo bit back a groan as the vibrations from the bars of the cell reverberated through his skull and watched suspiciously from under his eyelashes as Pedro opened the door of the cage.

“I have some news I think you’ll be interested in.” As he spoke, Pedro bent down and hauled Rodrigo roughly to his feet, yanking his already damaged shoulder out of its socket. Rodrigo whimpered, but managed not to scream in spite of the pain. He tried to remind himself that he had had worse in the past, but that had been out of choice, and by an enemy. Pedro was supposedly his fellow countryman, although there was very little about him that seemed fraternal, or even similar to Rodrigo.

Rodrigo didn’t reply. In response to what was obviously intended as an insult, Pedro shook him roughly from side to side, painfully wrenching his already painful shoulder. Rodrigo wanted to scream or to cry for mercy to be allowed to fix his shoulder – because once he was released it would only take a couple of seconds to reposition it – but he didn’t want to admit defeat.

“The _Queen_ wants you.” From Pedro’s tone, it was obvious that Elisabetta did not want him for anything good, and for the first time since he had been imprisoned, Rodrigo felt his resolve begin not just to weaken but to disappear entirely. He wanted to break down sobbing, but he also didn’t want to give Pedro the satisfaction of seeing him reduced to tears. “She sent the Count of Lerma.” This provoked very little response. “The Duke of Alva too.”

This time when Pedro spoke, Rodrigo winced slightly. Pedro slammed him back against the bars and he whimpered quietly. “Lerma searched your letters.” Beneath the several layers of grime and dried blood and God-knows-what-else covering his face, Rodrigo went deathly pale, and his eyes widened with terror. Pedro laughed. “Oh, yes, he knows exactly what you’ve been doing. You and your little lover.”

God, why had he left the letters lying around? Now Carlo’s good name was at risk, and he had always been so fragile. The fact that he had _thought_ he could trust Lerma was completely unimportant: Lerma didn’t need to risk himself to save a man who was probably going to die soon anyway. But still, he managed not to respond visibly, even though he wanted to scream.

Pedro carried on, now determined to make Rodrigo respond in some way. There was nobody else there to make sure he didn’t break the Inquisition’s laws, either, so he could do anything he felt like. “The good Count of Lerma will denounce him to the Queen.” Pedro said this not realising that the Queen already knew the identity of his lover or that Rodrigo was sure his lover was dead. “You won’t be able to save his life.”

Rodrigo carried on staring at Pedro, even though there were tears in his eyes because no, he hadn’t been able to save Carlo. “The Inquisition will torture him like they are you. Maybe they’ll burn him in front of you.”

This was finally enough to get Rodrigo to respond, if only to get Pedro’s hands off of him. “That’s impossible,” Rodrigo growled, and his voice barely sounded above a whisper and wasn’t identifiably his own. When Pedro tipped his head to the side, Rodrigo waited for him to open his mouth to carry on mocking him. “Do what you like to me, the Inquisition already killed him.” He had no reason to live if it wasn’t for Carlo, and the fact that Elisabetta too had rejected him had just proved to be too much.

Pedro continued staring at him for a few more seconds, as though he was doubting whether or not Rodrigo was telling the truth. As he took in the haunted look on Rodrigo’s face, and the coldness and dead look behind his eyes, though, he knew that Rodrigo wasn’t bluffing. “I don’t have anything to live for,” Rodrigo continued, “so you may as well just kill me now.”

As Pedro dropped Rodrigo onto the floor, he genuinely thought that this might be what was about to happen and as Pedro began kicking him in the chest and stomach Rodrigo offered no resistance, just groaning quietly with pain and submitting himself to it. After all he had been through, at this point he would have welcomed death as both an end to the pain and a reunion with Carlo. There was no doubt in his mind that he and Carlo had both suffered enough over the courses of their lives – they would be reunited in heaven.

But Pedro didn’t go through with it, giving Rodrigo a cursory blow with one foot to the jaw before stopping, laughing, and walking out of the cell. Rodrigo couldn’t stop himself from breaking down crying even though somebody else was in the room – but somehow, he managed to move himself far enough in order to push his shoulder back into the socket from where it had been dislocated.

He curled in on himself as Pedro left and was replaced by a fresh guard, his back turned to the door even though this put him at a disadvantage if somebody came in and started beating him again, as they surely would. He brought his arms up over his head, even though it hurt to even move the slightest bit, and sobbed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you are probably going to wonder, when you arrive there, how lerma got the first name francisco. well, for one thing in the opera and the schiller lerma is never given a first name, but _also_ , the count of lerma was a fictional and anachronistic character invented by schiller to give carlo another ally. however, his name was borrowed from a favourite of the historical filippo's successor (who the historical filippo didn't much like), called [francisco gómez de sandoval, first duke of lerma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_G%C3%B3mez_de_Sandoval,_1st_Duke_of_Lerma). lerma here gets to be a callback to him, just to show that i did some Googling.

For the next three days, Lerma and Alva did not hear a word from anybody. Both of them were sequestered away in their suites of rooms by the rest of the court, far enough away from where anything could be happening that they were unable to access any information, and for some reason both of them were completely shut out of the royal bedchamber. Both of the doctors were polite every time they encountered each other, of course, but every time either Lerma or Alva saw them, their questions went unanswered.

The longer it went on, the more worried Lerma grew, and the more frustrated Alva became. This carried on for three days, until, at four in the morning on the fourth day that Alva and Lerma had been back at court, a page burst into Lerma’s rooms where the two of them were playing cards to distract themselves from their current boredom. Lerma spun around, afraid that somebody had accused them of treason, but Alva seemed more frustrated by the intrusion, especially by a menial upon the privacy of two nobles.

“Didn’t anybody ever teach you to knock?” Alva was angry, but Lerma read the boy’s expression. He looked overjoyed as he sprinted over to the two nobles without any apology. Alva seemed to see that something had changed and tried to stop himself from lecturing the poor child. “Has something happened? Is there anything pertaining to the King’s condition that we need to be made aware of?”

“Yes, my Lords!” The boy was practically jumping up and down on the spot with excitement, and Lerma was favourably reminded of Tebaldo when he had first come to the court. He had been excited, constantly trailing around after Rodrigo and quizzing him about his time in foreign courts, and Rodrigo had willingly taken the boy under his wing. Lerma had decided that Rodrigo’s example here was one to be emulated, so he pulled an extra chair out.

“I can see from your expression that it’s no tragedy,” he said, motioning for the boy to sit. He did so. “Tell us your news.” He ruffled the page’s hair almost unconsciously – it had been so long since he had last seen his own children, who were back in his own county with his wife. Alva also seemed amused by the gesture.

“Yes, do share it with us.” Alva put his cards down – face down, Lerma noted with mild amusement – on the table.

“The King has regained consciousness,” the page said, now bouncing his leg excitedly. Lerma was amused by his inability to keep still. “He is still weak, but he was asking for both of you personally,” he said.

“Still in the same chamber as he has been in since…?” Alva didn’t say what had happened, but he did get up, as did Lerma. “We will go directly to him – you may go ahead of us.”

“Yes – go and _sleep_ , young man,” Lerma said, in an extremely paternal tone. The page leaped from his seat, bowed, ran to the door, bowed again, and then left, Lerma chuckling fondly after him. He and Alva waited for the door to close to begin discussing what they were to do if Carlo asked them any questions that they knew he would dislike the answers to. “If he asks about Rodrigo?”

“Tell him that we know nothing.” They indeed did know nothing. “Or at least – nothing other than that he _is_ alive.” Alva seemed quite determined in this matter, and when Lerma looked confused, he continued: “If we tell him that Posa is being tortured, he will want to run in and save him immediately and it will risk his own recovery.”

“Best not to tempt fate,” Lerma agreed, and then followed Alva towards the door.

The young page who had brought Lerma and Alva the news about the King had been right about his state – when they arrived in his chamber much more quietly than the page had arrived in Lerma’s, he was conscious, although he didn’t look entirely healthy. He was propped up against several pillows, his eyes half closed and his face pale, but at least he was _alive_ , and recovering even if he was only recovering slowly.

“Sire.” Alva bowed, and so did Lerma. Carlo cast them a look that suggested both that he was disappointed that neither of them was Rodrigo and that he didn’t like the sudden deference that he was being shown – especially by Alva, who Lerma knew that he wasn’t fond of.

But Carlo made a considered effort to be polite, even though he clearly wanted to be left alone to wallow in how sickly he felt and how much he was missing Rodrigo. “Gentlemen. I hope my page didn’t wake you.”

Ah, so the boy had been _Carlo’s_ page. That explained why he was so overjoyed.

Lerma, seeing that Carlo’s patience with anybody being in the room with him, let alone Alva, was already beginning to wear thin, decided to take the lead in this conversation rather than Alva. He stepped forward and gave Alva a look that he hoped conveyed that he just wanted Alva to keep his opinions to himself and only agree with the King. He could start political and military debates when Carlo wasn’t clearly teetering on the edge of throwing them both out and going back to sleep.

“No, we were both awake waiting for news,” Lerma said. It wasn’t necessarily _false_ , but Carlo recognised the ego-stroking that courtiers used to try to ingratiate themselves to the royal family and raised his eyebrows at Lerma. “…We were playing cards when your page interrupted us.”

Something that was somewhat akin to a joke seemed to be what it took to break through the wall of kingly ice that had suddenly placed itself squarely between Carlo and Lerma and Alva, and Carlo laughed. It was a quiet, weak sound – but at least Carlo still had something of a sense of humour. It was certainly more than could be said of anybody else in the court.

“I take it from that, then, that you’re both being kept comfortable?”

“Oh, fairly well,” Lerma said, and Carlo was unable to keep from smiling. He gestured to the doctor who was still in the room – his colleague had gone to bed several hours since, a sure sign that Carlo was making a good recovery – and the doctor bowed and left the room. Now, Carlo was alone with Alva and Lerma for the first time.

“I’m sure somebody has made plans, but you ought to know that I can’t face remaining here,” Carlo said, looking anxiously off to one side. This was understandable – the poor man had been through possibly the worst ordeal that Lerma could imagine him going through. In all honesty, the fact that he had even survived, let alone that he was able to gently joke with Alva and Lerma (albeit mostly with Lerma), was miraculous.

“Of course,” Lerma said. “Your mother wishes for you to recover at San Yuste with her. The Princess Éboli is also there, as is Tebaldo, and we will both be accompanying you there as soon as you are strong enough to be moved there.”

It almost looked as though Carlo went a little pale at the mention of Éboli, but Lerma supposed it was just a trick of the light, or the fact that Carlo was still sick even if he was conscious again. “And Rodrigo?” he asked.

“We truthfully don’t know where he is,” Lerma admitted, after a brief pause. Carlo looked unsettled, but he didn’t fly off the handle at Lerma, instead tipping his head slightly to the side. “But we do know that he is alive.”

“I see,” Carlo said quietly. He didn’t need to be told that this probably meant that things were not going well for him. He looked between Alva and Lerma for any sign that one of them did know what was being done to Rodrigo, but he saw that both of them were telling the truth. “And have you any other news?”

“We are both working tirelessly to uncover how you ended up in this situation, but the Inquisition seem to hinder us at every step, sire,” Alva said. Carlo briefly made eye contact with Lerma in a way that suggested that he was just _praying_ that Alva would drop dead of a heart attack there and then and stop ingratiating.

“What will make your task easier, then?” Carlo asked.

Alva opened his mouth again to speak, but Lerma cut him off. “We would like your permission to search the Inquisition’s papers, sire,” he said. “And your father’s papers, as ordered by the Queen.”

“Of course.”

Lerma and Alva were both visibly surprised that Carlo had granted them permission for both of these things so readily. Fortunately, though, Carlo was less inclined to fly into a rage if he perceived that he was being questioned than his father had been, and this was in spite of the fact that he was obviously in pain and wanted just to go to sleep, rather than to be quizzed by two noblemen as was the case.

“I believe that the Inquisition, and not my father, is responsible for this,” he continued. He sounded less like a king now, and more like a distracted young man who had nearly been killed after being hauled off to prison by his father, and who was now struggling to process the trauma attached to this.

Lerma and Alva looked at each other with confusion, but Carlo then seemed to remember himself. “Alva, you look exhausted. You may retire if you wish.” It obviously wasn’t a suggestion and was an order that was phrased in a friendly way. Alva gritted his teeth, bowed, and left the room. “Lerma, you may sit down if you like.” Lerma wasn’t entirely sure if this was an honest request, but he didn’t object to the opportunity in any case, and nor, apparently, did Carlo when he sat down on a chair by the bed.

“Why do you believe that the Inquisition would want the Heir to the Throne dead, sire?” Lerma tried not to sound as nervous as he felt, but even Carlo, whose ability to read the emotions of others was limited even at the best of times, which this was not one of, noticed how anxious he was.

“I don’t believe that they would simply switch their suspicions from me to Rodrigo,” he said. “Not that quickly, and not after I had attempted regicide at the auto-da-fé.”

“You… surely, they know that you weren’t in your right mind then?” Lerma said, in more the tone of a father, which Carlo had never truly had, than that of a courtier talking to his king. Carlo just sighed and passed his hand in front of his face as though testing to make sure that it was still there, and that his vision still worked.

“No doubt some sign of demonic infestation.” Carlo himself obviously didn’t believe this, but Lerma didn’t put it past the inquisition. “No, I saw how the Inquisitor manipulated my father my entire life. He had no respect for the King, so why would he respect the King’s least favourite child?”

“Because you were the heir to the throne.” Lerma looked grim.

“I was the heir to the throne, and therefore an easy target.” Carlo, it seemed, was just as paranoid and pessimistic as his father, or at least he was when he was separated from Rodrigo. That seemed to be the case for both of them. “If the Inquisitor had _me_ killed then my father was completely in his thrall until either Elisabetta produced a son or died, or until my half-sister was old enough to reign in her own right.” He looked about the room. “Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I don’t know, he didn’t reckon on how Rodrigo would respond.”

Lerma nodded. “I didn’t reckon on how Rodrigo would respond, either,” he said. “How much do you know about what happened?” he asked.

“Only as much as I remember. Nobody has told me anything more.”

“And what do you remember?”

“I remember Rodrigo telling me he was going to die. Then I remember very little. Or at least, I remember very little solid information.” It was a simple answer that would almost have been amusing, had it not been Carlo discussing the fact that he had nearly seen his lover die in front of him only to nearly have been killed himself.

“And now much do you want to know?”

“I want to know what happened. I particularly want to know how I came to be King.”

Lerma wasn’t sure that he _did_ want to know that, or that he _would_ want to know that after Lerma told him, but he pressed on nonetheless. “Your father thought that it was Rodrigo who had been shot; he meant to restore you to your position in the court,” he explained quietly.

“That doesn’t explain how he died.” Carlo wasn’t being demanding, or at least not in the same way as his father had been, but he was clearly going to continue to press for information if he wasn’t given it or if what he was given was insufficient. “I already think I know,” he added, mostly for Lerma’s benefit when he saw the look of trepidation on the Count’s face.

“Rodrigo took your sword, and he…” Lerma shuddered and tried to shake the image from his mind.

Carlo reached across and took his hand. “I see that I was right, then,” Carlo said quietly. “I… don’t know how to feel,” he admitted.

“Rodrigo was a soldier,” Lerma said, after nearly a minute of trying to figure out how to respond.

“I know that, despite my best efforts to deter him,” Carlo said. “I still can’t imagine…” He sighed heavily. “I think we should leave this topic.” He let go of Lerma’s hand.

“I am inclined to agree,” Lerma admitted. “As soon as we find out what has happened to him, he will be brought straight to where you are – if that is what you want.”

“Of course it is,” Carlo said. His voice was surprisingly gentle even for him, because he had always been more sensitive and emotional than his father, and Lerma could tell that he meant it genuinely. Quite aside from being worried for him, Carlo missed Rodrigo. “Was my permission to search my father and the Inquisitor’s papers all you required?” Carlo was trying to be subtle, but Lerma could tell that he was flagging. He had only been conscious for what seemed to be a few minutes, it was the middle of the night, and he had a recent gunshot wound, so Lerma couldn’t blame him.

“Yes, sire, unless there was anything else that you wanted or needed,” Lerma replied.

“There is one thing,” Carlo said, in the same slow voice that his father had used when somebody was about to meet his ire. Lerma nodded. “When you find him, I want you to keep the Duke of Alva away from Rodrigo for as long as you can.” Lerma nodded, but he must have looked confused, because Carlo continued, even though there was no need for him to do so: “Rodrigo will be fragile enough if any of the inquisition have touched him, which I am certain they will have,” he said, his tone deliberately cold, “and I know for a fact that Alva does not care for him. He would only aggravate things, and I won’t have that.”

Lerma nodded. “Of course, sire.”

“That was all,” Carlo said, but it wasn’t the cold dismissal that Lerma had always received from Filippo. No, Carlo was clearly exhausted, but still willing to be in Lerma’s company. “Thank you – if you have nothing more to ask of me, you may leave.”

Lerma thought for a second as he got to his feet, and finally spoke: “Just that you try to recover, sire.” He wouldn’t have been able to say anything of this sort to Filippo, but Carlo was young enough to be his child, just, if he had started young, and besides which, he needed a better father figure than Filippo. Lerma was willing to be that figure in his life, if Carlo was willing to allow him.

“Of course, Francisco.” Very few people ever called Lerma by his given name, much less Kings – Filippo seemed to forget that he even had a name amongst the throng of noblemen who constantly surrounded him, and Alva had rarely referred to him by name. Only Rodrigo had ever really referred to him as Francisco in the court. But that had apparently rubbed off on Carlo.

In any case, Lerma could see that Carlo was probably about to fall asleep. Rather than outstaying his welcome, which he was beginning to suspect that he already was beginning to do, Lerma rose from his seat, bowed, and saw himself out of the room. He looked briefly over his shoulder as he left the room and saw that Carlo had curled up on his side and gone back to sleep. Somehow, the image wasn’t completely at odds with the idea of Carlo now being the King of Spain and also most of the known world – actually, Lerma found it endearing.

The massive guard – Pedro, Lerma thought his name might be – was stationed outside the room, waiting with Alva and the doctor. The doctor looked like he would just have _loved_ to go to sleep, especially considering that Carlo was now sleeping, and didn’t appear to be in need of treatment, or even in an extraordinary amount of pain.

Even Alva and Pedro, neither of whom Lerma had ever observed sleeping, looked exhausted. “I would ask if there was any new information,” Alva said, “but I suspect from your face that you would rather I just left you to sleep.”

“I would strongly prefer that.” Now that he and Alva had spoken to Carlo it was nearly five in the morning, and Lerma wanted nothing more than to retire to his rooms and fall completely unconscious until at least the next afternoon. Fortunately, even though Alva seemed not to require sleep, he seemed to understand the need in other people for sleep, so he simply nodded and left Lerma to it, instead starting up a conversation with Pedro about serving in the army.

Despite how pleasant he had been to Lerma and Alva while they had been back in court, there was something that Lerma didn’t like about Pedro. For now, though, he wasn’t going to think about that, or about anything that related to the court. He just wanted to go to sleep, even though he knew that sleep would inevitably turn into mulling over what was to be done about Carlo, and particularly what was to be done about Carlo and Rodrigo, because it was obvious that Carlo needed Rodrigo by his side.

But if, as Lerma and Carlo both suspected, Rodrigo indeed was with the Inquisition, there was a very good chance that he would be released and would immediately need more help than Carlo was able to provide. He knew that Rodrigo hated being looked after and that Carlo was unsure of what to do where he had to look after others, and he truly didn’t want this to end the relationship for them, because Carlo and Rodrigo both did so much good for each other; they had for years.

Lerma found that all of these thoughts about the fate of Spain melted away as he undressed and crawled into bed, however, and it took altogether less than two minutes for him to go from lying in bed trying to think to him being completely unconscious. As he had hoped would happen, because he had been up at that point for about eighteen or nineteen hours and he had been under undue stress, he didn’t wake until past two the next afternoon.

Alva seemed already to have been awake for some hours when Lerma surfaced the next afternoon, as did Pedro. From what Lerma could tell as he took in the atmosphere of the palace, it was only them, Carlo’s page, and the two doctors who knew that the King was awake again. It was the doctor – the Flemish doctor, and not the doctor who had been with Carlo since childhood – and not Alva that confirmed this fact.

“The King has ordered that nobody be told he has regained consciousness until he feels that he has also recovered his senses,” he explained, in a hushed voice, as he gathered with Alva and Lerma in the embrasure of a window. When Alva looked as though he had further questions, he continued: “Carlo fears that his assailant is in the court,” he said, his tone more hushed, “and that if this individual knew that he was partly recovered, then they would wish to…” He searched for the right word. “That they would wish to ‘finish the job’, as it were.”

How does not allowing anybody to know that he is conscious helping in that situation?” Alva asked, in a tone that Lerma considered to be far too demanding, especially considering that the doctor was just the messenger, _and_ a messenger from the King, at that.

“He means to not have anybody informed until _after_ he reaches the Monastery of San Yuste,” the doctor explained. He was beginning to use the same tone of voice Lerma used with the youngest of his children when she refused to go to bed, or get dressed, or do anything that was necessary. “When he is safe there with the Queen, the plans for his coronation and for Filippo’s funeral can begin.”

At present, Filippo was lying in state in the private chapel in the court. There was a steady stream of courtiers making their way in and out to pay their respects to the King, and Lerma had heard some talk amongst the members of the Inquisition of having him beatified, once his murderer was dead. Lerma tried not to think too hard about either prospect – Filippo’s father had tried to start a cult of personality, but if his son had succeeded in doing this by dying, it could easily cause problems for untold generations.

Rodrigo, on the other hand, was quite another issue.

Lerma knew that Carlo had intended, when he and Rodrigo were younger, to make Rodrigo the head of the army when he became King. It was – and Lerma knew this for a fact because Carlo had told him so himself – partly an attempt by Carlo to keep his lover far away from the action so that he couldn’t be killed. Lerma suspected that Rodrigo would not be the sort to lead from the back, but Carlo had confided this during the Siege of Malta, in a panic at three in the morning because he was afraid that Rodrigo was dead, and that he just didn’t know it yet.

Carlo had matured since then. In fact, the reason that Lerma had even been in Carlo’s room at the time was that one of the household servants had heard Carlo throwing things against the walls of his rooms and screaming. He had considered it to be far out of his area of expertise and ran to fetch Lerma, and Lerma had sat with Carlo until he managed to calm down.

Asking him about Rodrigo had been an attempt to distract Carlo from the situation at hand. Possibly it hadn’t been the best option – the reason that Carlo had been crumpled in a sobbing heap on the floor when Lerma had come to find out what all the commotion was about had been the fact that he was worried about Rodrigo, after all – but he had enjoyed the distraction. Lerma had thought then that he would like to live in a court where Carlo was king. He had never assumed that it would happen so quickly, or that Rodrigo wouldn’t be a presence instantly that Filippo died.

Carlo, too, was concerned about Rodrigo. He was still in bed when Lerma was summoned to him, and he was reading over some papers. Lerma could tell from his expression as he entered the room that they were letters from Rodrigo that he had missed when he was looking for them for Elisabetta. “I realise we only spoke about this in the early hours of this morning,” Carlo said, as soon as the page – the same page who had been awake at four in the morning, and who still looked just as awake as he had been at that hour – had left the room, “but I truly _am_ worried for Rodrigo.”

Well, that was nothing new. Not that Lerma didn’t understand, of course.

“You must think I’m being ridiculous, I suppose.” For a minute, Lerma was confused that Carlo would even think like this – but then he remembered what his father had been like. He had barely even seemed to notice that he was doing it when he cut down his son’s self esteem and attempts to connect with him, but clearly it had hurt him more than he would let on. “I can’t build a Kingdom on just one man; my father was determined to drill that into my head from when I was a child.”

Lerma decided against pointing out that actually – yes, he _could_ , that was the exact premise behind a monarchy – but the thought entered his head for a moment. He tried to replace it with something more useful, to both himself and to Carlo. “Well, perhaps not.” Lerma had learned better than to contradict either Filippo or Carlo. While Carlo was softer than Filippo in temperament, he was just as obdurate as his father had been, and once an idea entered his head it was impossible to convince him that it was wrong. “But one single person can make a huge impact on either a country or a man.”

“And Rodrigo has certainly done that to me,” Carlo agreed. “And I know he can handle himself; he’s been to war and come back from it intact.”

 _Relatively intact_ , Lerma thought, because the real effect that serving in two bloody and unpleasant conflicts had had on a young man who had recently lost his beloved father was something that Rodrigo had moved heaven and earth to keep from Carlo. “I still worry about my wife when we aren’t both at court,” he said instead, because it was probably more sensible.

In any case, Carlo’s expression changed to something that Lerma struggled to read or comprehend when Lerma compared his relationship with his wife to Carlo’s relationship with Rodrigo. For a moment, Lerma thought he probably ought to apologise, although he wasn’t sure what it was that he would have been apologising for.

Carlo seemed to regather himself, though, and completely changed the subject. “I suppose I’ll have to marry?”

“Well, most Kings tend to.” Lerma was sure enough of what Carlo’s reaction was going to be to make a joke, and he was gratified when Carlo laughed. “Most Kings have also had lovers, of course.”

“My father didn’t.”

This was false, but since Lerma didn’t feel like outing Filippo posthumously to his son, or outing Rodrigo to his lover, he didn’t say anything directly on the subject. “There were plenty of things that your father did not do that it would have benefited him to do,” he pointed out instead.

Carlo seemed to accept this, but he still didn’t seem to want to do anything that he would consider to be infidelity to Rodrigo. Interesting, given that he had been so pleased to be able to marry Elisabetta that he had left the court without Filippo’s permission. “Could I not just declare Isabella my heir?” he asked. Lerma thought about it for a moment, but apparently, he thought about it for too long, because Carlo shook his head. “No, you’re right,” he said, even though Lerma hadn’t offered any response.

“I doubt very much whether Rodrigo would be upset,” Lerma said, his tone cautious. “He has been a courtier all his life, I’m sure he would understand that it’s just how things have to be.”

“What about the woman I married?” Carlo asked. “It would seem disingenuous.”

“She would be Queen of Spain,” Lerma pointed out. Carlo seemed to accept that – which was fair. Being the Queen of Spain would sweeten the deal of being in a loveless marriage with a man who had taken a male lover. (And, Lerma thought, Carlo would almost certainly be kinder to whoever became his Queen than Filippo had been to Elisabetta.) “And I’m sure a marriage that would be favourable for both of you could be arranged with the right young lady.”

“Oh,” Carlo said, appearing to mentally search through eligible young ladies who fulfilled the criteria in his brain. “Would that be wise?” he asked, but it was clear that he was thinking more of his hypothetical wife’s feelings than his own.

“It would be once or twice at most,” Lerma said.

“It still wouldn’t be pleasant for her. Or for me.” Carlo looked less convinced by the idea now, but Lerma could understand that. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Rodrigo, and he didn’t want any woman, no matter how agreeable he found her, to be trying to put herself into their relationship.

Still, Lerma could see that he needed reassurance. “You didn’t even regain consciousness a full day ago,” he said gently. “We can think about it in more detail when your head is clearer, and when you have Rodrigo back. He knows you better than I do,” he said, which was putting it simply, “so he can advise you better.”

When Carlo nodded in acceptance, Lerma continued with a different topic. “Was that all you wanted me for?”

Carlo seemed to have forgotten that he had even summoned Lerma for a few seconds, but then he shook his head. “No, there was one more thing,” he said. “I’m sure you already realise that I do not trust the Duke of Alva, either in the same way as my father did or… at all.”

Lerma nodded, but Carlo had continued without waiting for his response in any case. “I will admit that I do not have any reason to be suspicious of him,” he said slowly, “and I know that you already know that I do not want him near Rodrigo.” Lerma nodded again, making a mental note not to tell Carlo what Alva had said about Rodrigo in the past. “I do not want him to have unfettered access to me, or to the Royal household. Especially not to Elisabetta.”

This time, Lerma didn’t so much nod as incline his head slightly forwards. “I thought you may want to be warned in advance,” Carlo continued. “He will not have an important position in my court, and especially not in the military.”

Lerma was beginning to suspect, the longer he thought about Rodrigo’s situation, that Rodrigo was not going to be in a position where he was able to lead the army, mentally or possibly even physically. Alva would not be the ideal leader of the army even in that situation, but he would probably be reined in by the fact that Carlo had made his disapproval as vocal as he had through the years.

“He will still be an officer, obviously,” Carlo went on after Lerma had finished mulling his words over, “but he will be under Rodrigo’s control.”

“Carlo,” Lerma said slowly, deeply considering every word that he was saying to an extent he hadn’t even used when he had been telling the queen that Carlo had been shot, “I am not the person you should be discussing this with. I have never served in the army, and your father saw me more as a glorified page than as a noble.”

“The person I _should_ be discussing it with is clearly not present,” Carlo said, and his tone, while not outwardly aggressive because he genuinely liked Lerma and valued his opinion, was terse. If this had been a conversation with Filippo, Lerma would have dropped the subject immediately with profuse apologies but for one thing Carlo was not his father, and for another Rodrigo had left the army for a reason.

“The person with whom you should be discussing it left the army for a reason,” Lerma said, “and may not be receptive to being dragged out of retirement.” Of course, Rodrigo might be happier to yield to Carlo than he had been to yield to Filippo – but Lerma had heard the fear in his voice when he had spoken about Flanders, and he didn’t want to inadvertently allow Rodrigo to relive that trauma.

“Rodrigo left the army because he was disenfranchised with how my father conducted military campaigns in Flanders,” Carlo said. “I am not my father.”

Already, Lerma could tell that this was going to be a point of contention, but he hoped that it would heal as Carlo’s wounds did. He decided to try a different – and less confrontational – tactic. “Carlo, did Rodrigo ever tell you what happened in Flanders?”

Carlo looked like he was close to realising what Lerma was trying to get across, but he still didn’t quite seem to understand. “No,” he admitted. “He told me a little about Malta, but he never spoke about Flanders.”

“Did you just never ask, or did he avoid the subject?”

Lerma saw a look of suspicion flash across Carlo’s face – but he still answered the question. “I tried to ask,” he said, very quietly, after a long pause. “But I could never find the words, and he didn’t seem to want to discuss it, with me or with anybody.” He searched Lerma’s face for an indicator of something that Lerma didn’t understand, and probably couldn’t understand. “Should I ask him?”

Lerma was beginning to lose hope that there would be a “him” to ask at the end of this ordeal, but he still tried to offer a constructive reply. “You know him better than I do,” he said, “but you need to understand that he has tried to protect you from the worse things that he has seen.”

Carlo nodded and looked towards the window. It was beginning to snow, and from where he was sat Carlo could just about see two children – they couldn’t have been much older than about seven – and his page running out into the weather. While it would make it inconvenient to return to San Yuste as was the plan, especially if the snow got heavier as it almost certainly would, Carlo could appreciate having it as a view.

“I don’t think I would be mischaracterising Rodrigo to say that he is – or would be – willing to do anything that you asked of him,” Lerma said, “but I don’t doubt that that _also_ means that he would be willing to risk damage to his own health or psyche rather than upset you.”

Something he had said must have hit a nerve for Carlo, because even though he was sat completely still and propped up against a frankly obscene number of pillows, he winced slightly. Even so, he seemed to accept that what Lerma had said was correct. “I would rather have him by my side and happy than force him into a military position.”

“And there are officers other than Alva,” Lerma agreed, “even if there are none that you trust as deeply as you do Rodrigo.”

“Rodrigo was willing to sacrifice his own happiness for me even before he was my friend,” Carlo said, “but I don’t want him to have to.” Lerma looked at him, confused, but Carlo seemed to have entered his own world, and was talking to himself and not to his companion. “As the King…” He looked perturbed.

“As the King, you can keep him close to you and safe from attack,” Lerma pointed out.

“My father tried to do that to me,” Carlo said, now sounding frustrated again, “and I resented him.”

“That entered into it, certainly. But you resented your father for more than _just_ his mislead attempts to protect you,” Lerma pointed out. There was one thing to be said for Carlo’s lack of understanding of or engagement with his own emotions, and that was that Lerma was apparently able to blatantly state the obvious to him and have this treated like wisdom from the Ancient Greeks. “Besides that, Rodrigo knows that you love him.”

Carlo accepted that – or rather, he gave off the appearance of accepting that, because Lerma could tell that he was exhausted and wanted to go back to sleep rather than carry on a conversation that had taken a turn in a direction that he clearly didn’t like going down. Fortunately, Lerma didn’t need his ego to be pandered to like some other courtiers did, and when Carlo simply asked him to leave, he bowed and did so.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next two weeks, as Carlo steadily regained his strength, the Duke of Alva became increasingly frustrated with his sudden and violent demotion. He had landed on his feet with Filippo, really – a weak-willed king who desperately wanted to appear strong, and who latched onto strong men as a result. The Duke of Posa was a soldier and the hero of St. Elmo besides that, Alva himself was a decorated war hero (although not on anything close to the same level as Rodrigo), and the Grand Inquisitor was – well, he was the Grand Inquisitor.

Carlo, on the other hand, seemed to have seen his father’s reliance on military might as a weakness rather than the strength that Alva and his father both thought it to be. As such, though, Carlo had turned to the Count of Lerma as a confidant in the absence of the Duke of Posa, and Alva had been practically pushed out of both any power and the King’s bedchamber and into the cold.

After years of being one of Filippo’s favourite courtiers, suddenly barely even being acknowledged by the new King stung to an extent that Alva hadn’t expected. Yes, Rodrigo’s abrupt rise to power had been unexpected and frustrating but Filippo had clearly still had time for Alva. Carlo wanted to have nothing to do with him. Yes, Alva got the impression that really, he didn’t want Lerma to be there either – he just wanted Rodrigo – but Filippo had never been that way to the exclusion of everybody else around him.

Despite the fact that Carlo had always been sickly, even as a child, Alva supposed that the fact that Carlo knew that he _had_ to recover in order to see Elisabetta again (and to see Rodrigo again) meant that he was determined to do so. He was able to walk around a little, aided by a courtier (usually Lerma) or by one of his doctors within a week, and by the end of the second week, he no longer needed to be supported. He still walked with a cane and a slight limp, but it was still remarkable how rapidly Carlo had recovered.

The first time after Carlo regained consciousness that Alva was summoned by him was nearly a month into Carlo’s recovery. Other than that, though, Alva had only rarely seen Carlo, and had only seen Lerma once or twice a week. Lerma was sat on the desk that Carlo was leaning against when Alva finally arrived, seemingly having been having a light-hearted conversation before Alva arrived, based on Lerma and Carlo’s expressions. Lerma hopped off the desk when he saw Alva, and Carlo beckoned him over.

“Duke, have you any word on the Grand Inquisitor’s papers?” Carlo’s tone and expression both made it clear, albeit with considerable subtlety, that Alva was not really wanted here. He could accept being simply a means to an end, of course, but he didn’t appreciate it, and he particularly hated being made to feel like an interloper after all he had done up to this point to help both Carlo and his father. “The Count of Lerma and I have news to share, but I would rather know sooner than later,” he added.

“Unfortunately, the Grand Inquisitor is as reticent as ever,” Alva said. “He refuses to allow me access to any of his writings, and this is not through lack of trying.” This was true, and Alva’s expression of frustration only confirmed it. Carlo was willing to accept this as fact as well, fortunately.

“I suppose I will have to apply more pressure,” he said, his expression dark. “He isn’t above doing so to innocent men.” Carlo and Lerma exchanged a look that Alva must have missed the meaning of. “Regardless, I mean to leave to join my mother in San Yuste tomorrow morning,” Carlo said.

“Sire, is that–”

But Carlo cut the Duke of Alva off as quickly as though he had never even started to speak. “Before I leave for the Monastery, however, I want the papers from the Inquisitor.” Alva just stared at him uncomprehendingly, willing him to continue to speak but not daring to ask. “You were in the army, Duke, I’m sure you can work out what I want you to do,” he said, a touch more patronisingly. Lerma tried to pretend that he wasn’t laughing behind his hand, and Carlo shot him a look. (It was not an aggressive look, more seeming to suggest that Lerma save laughing at Alva’s misfortune for later.)

Alva still knew when he wasn’t wanted. “As you wish, sire,” Alva said, through gritted teeth. The way Carlo smiled at him – completely and frankly blatantly false and more than a little snide – reminded both Alva and Lerma of his father, albeit for different reasons. Alva remembered the statesman. Lerma remembered the distant father. “And the plans for your return to the monastery of San Yuste?” he asked.

Carlo made a sound in response to the question. “I mean to leave as soon as the sun rises,” he said. “Lerma and my page – who I believe you are already familiar with – will accompany me in the carriage.” Alva wasn’t surprised that he was not allowed to accompany the King as well, but he _was_ more than a little annoyed about the fact. “Since you are more accustomed to wielding a sword than the Count–” he indicated Lerma, and Alva had to admit that this was probably fair “–you will be riding ahead on horseback to protect us.”

_Surely, the page should also have been doing this_ , Alva thought. Obviously, however, he didn’t question it, because he could tell that Carlo’s patience with him was wearing thin. Instead, he bowed and tried to disguise the distaste that he was beginning to feel for Carlo’s reign. “I would be honoured to be allowed to.” A look of disgust flashed across Carlo’s face for the merest moment, but it was gone by the time Alva stood upright again. “Ought I to go and lay your demands before the Grand Inquisitor now?”

“No,” Carlo said. “I would like to have the element of surprise as much on our side as possible.” Alva was genuinely interested in Carlo’s plan now, rather than just feeling vaguely horrified as he had before. “You will leave five minutes before the end of the evening service,” Carlo continued, once he knew that he had Alva’s undivided attention. “You have my permission to force entry to the Inquisitor’s rooms without his knowledge and without the approval of his guards if need be, and I wish for you to be waiting there for him when he returns.”

Alva thought Carlo had finished speaking, especially when he didn’t open his mouth again for a good few seconds, but he finally continued. “I would not ask you to do this if I did not legitimately fear that my father’s hand was forced by the Inquisitor in ordering Rodrigo killed,” he said, after what appeared to be considerable thought. “I did not have a good relationship with my father,” Carlo said, “but I know that he did _try_ , and I know that he thought very highly of Rodrigo.”

His gaze tracked down to the floor for a second. “Even I struggle to imagine him allowing the Inquisition to demand either me or Rodrigo without a considerable fight.”

Maybe it was that Carlo was being overly idealistic about how his father felt about him. That was his suspicion, at least, because he couldn’t believe that Filippo’s opinion of him was anything better than vague tolerance. It still made sense, though, that he wanted desperately to believe that his father didn’t actually want either his son or his son’s lover to be killed. The idea that his hand had been forced was the only way Carlo had been able to sleep at night since he had got over the initial fatigue that had overwhelmed him for the first week for which he had been conscious.

Carlo looked back across at Alva after seemingly staring off into space for a few seconds.

“That was all, Duke,” he said.

Alva somehow couldn’t find Carlo quite as frustrating now as he had at the beginning of this conversation. Yes, he was something of a brat, and yes, there was something about Carlo that did and always would annoy him a little but knowing that he was extremely emotionally vulnerable and missing Rodrigo, even if Alva was sure that Rodrigo was bad news, endeared him to Alva, even if it was just a tiny amount. He was remarkably young, and remarkably unprepared, and the one person who he had expected would be by his side at this point wasn’t there and couldn’t – or wouldn’t – be found.

And so, Alva went if not willingly then somewhat graciously to the evening service that the Grand Inquisitor lead in the King’s small private chapel, and he quietly sat at the back and slipped out five minutes before the end of the service. At least he was being asked to do something now, rather than Carlo just ignoring him.

He was not armed as he usually was with a sword, but he did have a dagger concealed under his cloak. The Duke of Posa may have been a stopped clock as far as Alva was concerned, but a stopped clock was right twice a day. While carrying concealed weapons was far from the Duke’s invention, Alva associated it with the Duke of Posa because he always had a remarkable number of weapons about his person. It was ridiculous, and Alva sometimes thought it must have suggested that he was overcompensating for something. On the other hand, what Alva had accidentally read of Carlo and the Duke’s letters to each other suggested that Carlo was _quite_ satisfied with his lover. He tried to put that out of his mind, for the most part, but it was still true.

Alva made good time through the royal palace, and as such he arrived at the entrance to the Grand Inquisitor’s suite of rooms before the service was over. There was only one guard – Pedro – stood outside the room, but he and Alva had a fairly good relationship, all things considered. When he saw Alva, Pedro simply nodded at him, otherwise paying very little mind to him.

“The King has ordered me to await the Grand Inquisitor in his rooms,” Alva said, keeping his tone conversational, and Pedro fortunately seemed to see that this was not something that was to be discussed. He nodded and waved Alva towards the door. “Thank you.” Alva was always sure to be polite to the palace guards, but particularly to Pedro, because he could well imagine Pedro breaking his skull without exerting any effort. He was a terrifyingly well-muscled man.

The Grand Inquisitor arrived, accompanied by two attendants leading him and two other attendants behind him, who Alva assumed were only employed to maintain the Grand Inquisitor’s air of importance, about ten minutes after the Duke of Alva arrived in his rooms. The fact that it was the Duke of Alva specifically who was in the room had to be announced to the Inquisitor – however, Alva could see from his face that he was aware that there was an alien presence in the room.

“And what brings you here, my son?” The Inquisitor waved the two attendants who weren’t actively holding him upright away with one hand, somehow with enough precision that he managed to stop his hand far enough away from the man to his right side’s face that he didn’t slap him inadvertently. “Surely, you aren’t just seeking absolution?” His tone was paternal, but in a way that made even Alva, a seasoned soldier, nervous, rather than the warm tone that Lerma took with Carlo.

No, if Lerma was a loving father figure trying to gently guide a wayward child, the Grand Inquisitor was a thundering patriarch bellowing his rage against his unfortunate son. Reportedly, he had even been able to reduce Filippo to tears, but Alva had suspected all along that there had been more to Filippo than just the kingly veneer he presented to the world. The idea of him being able to be weakened by this man didn’t surprise him on a number of levels.

In any case, Alva had his orders. “No, Father,” he admitted. The Grand Inquisitor cocked his head curiously to the side. “The King is concerned,” he explained. “For himself and for the future of the nation of Spain.”

The Inquisitor seemed to consider that to be reasonable. “Quite right.” His voice was low and dangerous. “He has inherited a kingdom at the edge of crisis. How can I provide comfort to him? Did he send you here to request that I attend him?”

“He wishes to see the papers of the Inquisition, as well as your personal papers.” The Inquisitor raised his hand and snapped his fingers. One of the two attendants disappeared, and for a moment, Alva held his breath. He put the fear out of his mind and forced himself to continue. “He wishes to know the full weight of the burden on the Church and the Inquisition,” he continued.

The Inquisitor nodded. “I dictate all of my letters and diaries.” This was neither an answer nor new or surprising information to Alva, and Alva knew that the Inquisitor knew it. “However, in service to the new King, one of the two gentlemen who attend me will provide the papers that you request.” He indicated one of the two monks, who bowed (why? The Inquisitor wouldn’t be able to see it and it was no skin off Alva’s back whether he did or not) and made a move to collect the papers in question.

Alva almost wanted to make a rude gesture, or to do something impertinent, just to test whether or not the Inquisitor really _was_ blind. He couldn’t say why, but both he and half the court sincerely believed that he was for some reason lying about his blindness. Being in the same room as the Inquisitor and having a private conversation with him just served to strengthen Alva’s conviction that something was amiss, not that he could explain why.

“Will his majesty be requiring an audience with me?”

“I do not think so, Father,” Alva replied, his tone still careful and deliberate. The Grand Inquisitor was incredible powerful, and he could make Alva disappear right now if he so desired, and Alva was extremely frightened of him, despite the fact that he could kill him right here and now – the Inquisitor was a frail old man and was blind, while Alva was a soldier and a war hero. “Or rather – he did not say that he would, and I’m sure that he would have given me specific instructions to send for you in person, if that was what he desired.”

“In that case, my attendant will accompany you back to his rooms with the papers you requested, once he has gathered them.” The Grand Inquisitor had a real talent for making even the most mundane statement sound imposing and ominous. He could have told Alva that he enjoyed drinking coffee in the mornings and he would probably have had nightmares about it for weeks.

As he spoke, the attendant in question returned. He was silent, dressed in the habit of a monk, and when Alva tried to make eye contact, or simply to seek out the other man’s expression, he simply couldn’t make out the man’s face under the hood of his habit, which fell just over his eyes and, in the low light of the room, covered his entire face with shadow. Alva rose and bowed, even though the Inquisitor supposedly couldn’t see it. “In that case, Father,” he said, keeping his voice soft, “I will leave you in peace.”

“Very well, my son.” Alva did not like being called that by the Grand Inquisitor. Not one bit. “Please, tell the King that he is welcome to my quarters any time he wishes, and…” He chuckled, and it was the single most horrifying sound that Alva had ever heard. “And that he does not need to send a soldier in order to speak to a Priest.”

Alva tried to laugh at the attempt at a joke, just to be polite, but it came out sounding more like the sort of sound a rabbit made when it was frightened. The Grand Inquisitor didn’t seem to react, and nor did the attendant, even as he followed Alva out of the room and into the hallway. Alva nodded briefly towards Pedro, who looked mildly baffled by Alva’s look of fear and the fact that a monk carrying a large folio of papers was following him but nodded back even so without saying anything.

Even now that he was free from his master, the monk following Alva – walking a couple of paces behind him and slightly to his left – didn’t speak. Even his feet didn’t seem to make a sound as he walked – or rather floated, which was the impression given by his floor-length robes – over the flagstone flooring. There was something distinctly otherworldly about everybody high up in the Inquisition, and apparently that even extended to the Grand Inquisitor’s servants. Still, he was better company than the Inquisitor, because at least he wasn’t outright _terrifying_. Just a little bit frightening.

The lack of conversation at least meant that Alva and the mysterious and silent monk arrived in good time back at the King’s rooms. Lerma was standing outside the door with Pedro, who had somehow made it back from the Inquisitor’s apartments ahead of Alva. They had both clearly been waiting for Alva to return, and both he and the guard nearly jumped out of their skins when the monk floated silently around the corner behind Alva. Alva took the papers when the Monk offered them, and then turned to face him.

“You may leave now if you wish, my friend.” No reply. Alva glanced at Lerma and then at Pedro, who both confirmed with their expressions that it wasn’t just him and that this monk was distinctly unsettling. “Please, reiterate with your master the Inquisitor that the King will send for him directly he requires his services.” Still no reply, but the monk bowed, turned neatly on his heels, and floated back off down the hallway. Alva, Lerma, and Pedro all stared at each other.

“Shall we agree not to mention that experience in the future?” Lerma finally asked, to break the silence.

“I think we ought,” Alva agreed, because if he thought about it too much it would start keeping him up at night.

There was no way he could have expressed how unnerving the situation with the monk was, and he also knew that the monks attached to the Inquisition weren’t bound by a vow of silence. In any case, he also knew that monks who _were_ subject to these vows were very expressive even without speaking. They also probably wouldn’t be the servant of a blind man, because then how would they be able to communicate? No, there was something aside from the obvious matter amiss with the Inquisition, but whatever it was, Alva was not in any way prepared to try to explore it. Maybe Carlo would.

“The King wishes for us both to help sort through the papers from his father and the Grand Inquisitor,” Lerma said as they re-entered Carlo’s rooms. “What else did the Inquisitor have to say?” Lerma halted outside the door to Carlo’s bedroom for a moment before entering to ask this.

“Very little that surprised me,” Alva said. “He wished to know if the King wanted to see him, since he is conscious now.”

“Did he seem to expect it?” Lerma asked.

“I would have said he did.” Alva hadn’t really given much thought to whether the Inquisitor was just asking to be polite or whether he expected to be addressed directly by the King rather than by a courtier, albeit a highly ranking one. Or at least, Alva _had_ been of great importance, when Filippo had been King. Now that Filippo was dead, he had been pushed to the side by his successor in favour of a man who was a dove, rather than a hawk.

Now that he thought of it, however, to the Inquisitor, the fact that the King’s first action towards him had not been to summon him for an audience but to order his papers to be collected without a word to him in person would probably seem like a snub or a slight at best and at worst an outright threat. Yes, ordinary people tended to mellow with age, but the Grand Inquisitor was no ordinary man. Any person who had been able to strike fear into the heart of Filippo without even being able to see him had to be truly remarkable.

“Sire.” Carlo was still leaning some of his weight against the desk when Alva and Lerma opened the door, but now there were five candles on the desk around him, near to one of Filippo’s papers. Alva was vaguely aware that Carlo’s eyesight was poor, but apparently it was worse than he had thought, if he needed that much light just to read a letter. That being said, Filippo’s writing had been small and not entirely legible. Alva had only seen Carlo’s writing once or twice, but it was a fair amount larger than his father’s and obviously written by somebody who struggled to see what he had been writing unless he was very close to the page.

“I don’t think there was anything out of the ordinary in this one,” he said, presumably to Lerma, without looking up. “I could barely make out the second one, but nothing in that seemed suspect either.” He shuffled the papers on the desk around, careful not to jog the candles and drip wax everywhere or, worse, inadvertently set fire to the letters.

Alva was now crouched beside the bed, which he had started emptying the letters onto, and he began removing the papers that the Inquisitor had given him from the folio that they had been haphazardly stuffed into by the ominous monk, suspecting that his presence was not going to be required again for a few seconds. Lerma and Carlo stared at the second of Filippo’s papers in silence for a few more seconds before Lerma confirmed: “No: wholly unremarkable.”

Alva was loosely aware of some sound of clothes rustling behind him, but he paid it no mind until Carlo appeared beside him. He nearly jumped out of his skin, but he bowed as best he could while he was half way between crouching and kneeling. “We may well be up for the rest of the night reading through these,” Alva said, noting the way Carlo had to lean against the furniture near him and the shadows under his eyes. “Would it perhaps be wiser to start early tomorrow morning, with fresh eyes?”

“Perhaps wiser,” Carlo conceded, which confused Alva, because Filippo had never admitted that somebody else could have had an idea better than one of his and that was one trait that Carlo and his father seemed to share, “but if Rodrigo is…” He swallowed heavily and looked away for a few seconds to collect himself. “If the Inquisition have taken him, then he will have suffered enough. I don’t want to consider the possibility of him being there for even another night.”

There was one thing to be said for Carlo, and that was that he was honest, and that his love for Rodrigo was wholly unselfish. Alva had never doubted that Filippo _did_ love his wives – or at least the two of the wives that he had met. His marriage to Mary of England had been an exercise in avoidance, because he had still been emotionally raw after the death of his first wife and had entered into the marriage not out of love but out of necessity. Her obsessive love for him hadn’t been her fault, but Alva knew that it had unsettled the King. He also didn’t doubt that Filippo loved Carlo, in his own, strange way. However, Filippo had shown love by trying to mould others in his own image and to change things about them that were inconvenient to them.

Alva knew that Carlo was in equal measures confused and frustrated by Rodrigo’s fixation on saving the people of Flanders. But he, unlike Filippo, had never sought to change it, even if he didn’t understand and even if he worried for Rodrigo’s life on account of it. This was just an extension of that. Now that Carlo was King, of course, that might change – but Alva very much doubted that it would. Carlo and Rodrigo had survived a lot of changes to their relationship, and this could possibly just be another minor alteration. The possibility of torture, on the other hand – that would be more to work around.

Carlo would be better placed, probably, to adjust to the change in dynamic. Yes, other people – and especially Rodrigo himself – had cared for him his entire life, but he was an intensely loving young man along with it. He had been rejected by his father his entire life, and both Lerma and Alva were surprised that he was as good-natured in the face of it as he was. He had turned it in on himself partly, yes, but his push-back against it had evidently been to care aggressively about Rodrigo. Lerma didn’t want to be in the room if Carlo found out that something unimaginably bad had happened to Rodrigo.

Rodrigo, on the other hand, had instantly taken on a role of caring for Carlo when he had found out that Carlo’s father had refused to do so. Yes, he was in love with him, but Rodrigo also took care of Carlo. The fact that the Inquisition having got their hands on him – if they had done, which Lerma was still hoping that they hadn’t – would almost certainly have had powerfully negative effects upon whether Rodrigo could keep doing this. He had been a soldier most of his adult life, and the idea that somebody – especially somebody who he had previously been caring for – was looking after him would not be enjoyable for him.

Lerma was sat on the bed reading the Inquisitor’s papers, while Carlo was still at the desk. Alva was the only one there standing up, furthest from the light being thrown by the candles. Despite being the oldest person in the room by a good twenty years, he didn’t have Carlo’s natural poor eyesight or Lerma’s years of bending over barely-legible scribbles in poorly-lit rooms in the service of the King, and Alva’s vision was the best out of the three of them.

Most of the papers in Lerma’s stack had very little information, either pertinent or impertinent. For the most part, it was ledgers and daybooks from Churches around the country – just basic accounts, things like how many candles a Church used, or the cost of upkeep of a fish-pond in a monastery. Still, Lerma examined them all rigorously, because there might have been a lead in there somewhere, and he would never have been able to forgive himself (and, more significantly, Carlo wouldn’t either) if he missed something important through his inattention.

He continued turning ledgers over, finding information about the price of incense in different areas of Spain increasingly boring as time went on but never quite losing focus and reading every word no matter how dull it got. He must have got the worst papers of the lot – he had seven or eight of the ledgers that he had read now lying face-down on the bed, while Carlo, even with his hopeless eyesight, had read about twenty, and Alva had read about forty. Neither of them was scrimping on reading them either – Lerma’s must just have had more information in them.

He suddenly realised that he had been painfully hunched over for nearly an hour now, and that the muscles in his back and shoulders were not so much screaming as wailing and sobbing in pain. He briefly got up, stretching his arms and his shoulders to alleviate the ache, and then went back to the papers. There were just two more ledgers – Alva had the other half of them – and then various papers of differing sizes. They all looked to be written by the same hand, or at least by a remarkably good imitation of the same hand, but Lerma didn’t look at them for long, instead returning to the ledgers. They were just as unremarkable as all of the other ledgers, but the first of the different papers was far more interesting.

Specifically, it was a letter from Father Domingo, Filippo’s confessor, to the Grand Inquisitor. It wasn’t relevant to what they were searching for – it was from just after Elisabetta had come to the Spanish court from France – but it did detail some of the previous King’s insecurities, and there were a few words about his concern for Carlo’s future in the court. Lerma put it on a new, separate pile of letters that were possibly relevant to their search but not directly so, and then moved onto the next letter.

This one, on the other hand, was relevant.

Lerma didn’t know what it was, but as soon as he opened it, he knew that it would be important, and not just another document to maybe show to Carlo later. The seal had been opened, and Lerma could see some of the wax had crumbled off onto the paper. He brushed it off, and immediately found himself looking at Filippo’s signature, as well as a scrawl that didn’t look like words or even letters, but that he suspected might have been the signature of the Grand Inquisitor. The annotation beneath it, tiny and in pencil, and in handwriting that Lerma did not recognise, confirmed this to be true.

Any document that was signed and sealed by both the King of Spain and the Grand Inquisitor himself, rather than through a proxy, was going to be important, and the pain in Lerma’s shoulders was beginning to distract him again. The low light also wasn’t helping, so he got up and brought the document over to the desk that Carlo was sat at, poring over what looked at a glance like a letter to a Papal Legate.

Carlo didn’t say anything to Lerma, but he moved one of the candles out of the way so that Lerma could put the document on the desk. Lerma dragged a chair over and inclined a candle slightly towards the document so that he could see it more clearly.

The ink was smudged in places and the writing, while identifiably Filippo’s, almost looked as though the King had been in some emotional turmoil when he had written out the document. That said, most of the documents dictated by the Grand Inquisitor were difficult to read, so it may have simply been that he spoke quickly and whoever he was dictating to – even if they _were_ the King of Spain – was too afraid to tell him to slow down and simply rushed to keep up.

He somehow got the impression that this wasn’t the case.

Lerma read the document, leaning his head dangerously close to one of the candles on the desk until Carlo looked over and swooped it out of the way before Lerma could set fire to his hair through lack of attention to what was happening. Lerma didn’t notice – he was too enthralled in what he was reading. He read it, and then read it again to make sure that he fully comprehended it, and then a third time to ensure that he wasn’t seeing things or simply going mad.

When he realised that he wasn’t hallucinating, Lerma slowly leaned over and tapped Carlo on the arm to get his attention. Carlo took the letter off him and pored over it, but Lerma could tell, between the shaky and smudged writing that looked like water had fallen on it so as to render it completely illegible in places and the fact that he could barely see in full light, that there had been little point in doing so. Still, the movement had got Alva’s attention too, and he had come over to investigate, still holding the letter that he had been reading.

Lerma started trying to read it out loud, but only a few words into the first line, he realised just how awful the King’s writing had been towards the end of his life, even if his life had been ended by another person and not a disease or nature. He handed it to Alva instead when Alva put his hand out for it, and took the two remaining letters that Alva, who had worked through his documents at a remarkable pace, still held in his hand.

Alva read quickly, although he occasionally had to lean down to hold the paper closer to the candle, before he finally began to read the letter in its entirety. Lerma didn’t need to look at him to tell that he, too, could see how suspicious the paper was.

“Sire this is…” Alva looked at it again to make sure that he was really seeing what he was seeing. “Your father has signed the Duke of Posa’s entire estate over to the Inquisition.” Carlo reached again for the paper, this time so frantically that he nearly knocked two of the candles over with the sleeve of his robe. He held it close to his face while Lerma considered the two papers that he now held.

These too had been sealed by Filippo, and by the look of the vellum that they were written on they were both official and recent. Alva pulled Lerma back by his sleeve and up towards the door where he was stood. “Have you read these yet?” Lerma whispered.

Alva immediately took the two papers back and shook his head. “I’ve started to read the first one.” Lerma expected to have to study his usually portentous friend’s expression to know what was happening, but he didn’t have to. Alva was pale, his eyes wide and his jaw clenched as he looked over at Carlo, who had finished reading the deed signing Rodrigo’s land over to the Inquisition and crumpled it up in his fist. “Read. Don’t say anything,” he hissed.

“Don’t burn that,” Lerma said hastily, when he saw what Carlo was considering. Carlo didn’t, but he flung it at the door so hard that Lerma nearly bolted from the room entirely. He moved so that Alva was between him and Carlo and began to read the two documents.

Alva craned his neck around to read them too – but he clearly read much more quickly than Lerma did, because Lerma was barely half way through the preamble when Alva suddenly snapped, “Give me those. Now.” When Lerma did, he immediately turned and ran out of the room. Lerma could hear him bellowing for Pedro out in the hallway.

“Is he…?” Carlo didn’t look angry now – just afraid.

Lerma crouched on the floor next to the seat he was still sat on and took hold of Carlo’s hand in both of his, at a loss for how to help and comfort him otherwise. He was about to reply to the question when Alva returned with Pedro, now practically dragging the massive guard in by his ear. Lerma could tell by his face that the bad feeling he had got from Pedro when he had first started guarding the King had been vindicated, but he wasn’t sure any more whether he wanted it to be.

“Sire, I grieve to inform you – _why do you not_ _kneel before the King, you bastard_ –” Alva didn’t give Pedro the opportunity to kneel of his own volition, and no sooner were the words out of his mouth he kicked Pedro in the shins and simultaneously punched him in the jaw so hard that he practically collapsed to the floor.

When he let go of the candle that had been dangerously close to Alva and Pedro and in danger of falling and setting one or both of them on fire, Lerma stepped in to stop this before somebody got severely injured. “Duke, if you _want_ to mount a performance for us, you had better go and find a theatre.” Alva glared at him. “This is no way to conduct yourself in the presence of your monarch.”

“Gentlemen, did any of you _want_ anything?” To an outsider, Carlo would have sounded snippy. On the other hand, Lerma could tell that the problem was really that he was afraid. He moved to stand nearer to him than to Alva and Pedro, putting himself partly between the King and the other two men. “What were those papers, and why have you dragged this man in here?”

“Sire–”

“ _I hadn’t finished_ ,” Carlo spat. There was more kingly authority and venom in his voice than Lerma thought he had ever heard from even Filippo, and it stunned him. Alva looked up, threatened by the tone and then by the look in Carlo’s eyes. “ _These papers are highly sensitive, so I hope for your sake, Alva, that you have a good excuse._ ” Alva leaned away. Lerma felt strangely proud.

“Sire, the papers that Lerma and I were reading were death warrants.” Carlo stood up. Lerma knew what would follow, even though he hadn’t finished reading the documents when Alva had bolted. He could tell that Carlo knew as well. “This one was the death warrant for the Duke of Posa.” He held up the warrant in his right hand. “It is signed by both your father the previous King of Spain and the Grand Inquisitor himself.”

“And the second?”

Lerma and Alva both knew that Carlo knew whose death warrant this was, but Lerma knew that Carlo also needed to know if his father had signed it. “The…” Alva turned so that he didn’t have to look at Carlo. “The second warrant is for you, sire, dated early the next morning after the warrant for the Duke.”

“Signed by my father?” Carlo was shaking. Lerma moved to support him, but Carlo waved him away.

“No, sire.” Carlo relaxed slightly. “Only the Inquisitor signed this one.” He gave the two warrants to Carlo, still unable to meet his eye.

“Why are you still here?” Carlo stared down at Pedro, who looked up but then immediately looked away again when he saw the murderous look in Carlo’s eyes, all solely fixated down at him. “In fact – Duke, what did you mean by bringing this man to me?” He didn’t sound quite as angry with Alva as he had with Pedro, but he still very obviously didn’t sound like he wanted him there.

“Sire, this gentleman is attached to the Inquisition.” Carlo’s eyes widened, and Lerma could tell that he was barely reining himself in from bludgeoning Pedro to death with his cane right there and then. “He may be able to tell us where the Duke of Posa is being held.” Alva punctuated this phrase with a kick to Pedro’s back.

“Not without the permission of the Inquisitor,” Pedro growled.

“ _Did I give you permission to speak?_ ” Carlo snarled. Even Lerma took a step away now. He hadn’t realised that it was possible for anybody, let alone Carlo, to sound as angry as he did. “Duke, remove this man.”

Alva didn’t need to be asked twice or told where he was to remove the apparently traitorous guard to. He hauled Pedro up by his shoulder as though he was disgusted to even be forced to touch him and began to march him out of the King’s rooms towards the palace’s dungeon.

“Sire, is there anything that I can do?” Lerma was quiet, in contrast with all Alva’s bravado over the last few minutes.

But as soon as the door closed, all of the authority and magnanimity seemed to leave Carlo’s body entirely. He slumped down onto the bed with his head in his hands, and Lerma crouched in front of him, putting his hands on his upper arms, unable to do anything else to support him. Lerma just stayed there for another few seconds, until he felt and heard Carlo start sobbing. He got up and sat on the bed beside him, putting his arms around Carlo and holding him as he cried into the fabric of Lerma’s doublet.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is: the event you've all been waiting for. (is the monk the emperor? well, he just might be. i just felt like writing A Monk With Things To Say, if i'm honest.)

Carlo was still red-eyed and upset when Alva returned, but he had stopped crying and let go of Lerma, and even though it was blatantly obvious that the King had been utterly distraught and sobbing onto Lerma’s shoulder only a couple of minutes ago none of the men in the room mentioned it. Alva looked worried still, but mostly he looked, and was, incredibly angry. Obviously, he was angry that he had been fooled into thinking that Pedro was simply a harmless oaf. He was also angry that Lerma, of all people, had had the temerity to lecture him in front of the king.

Lerma, meanwhile, was trying to work up the courage to ask what they should do now that they knew that Rodrigo was in the thrall of the Grand Inquisitor. Fortunately for him, Carlo answered the question for him without Lerma’s needing to answer it. “Lerma, please send for the Grand Inquisitor. I want to ask him in person what he was thinking.” His voice still sounded weak.

“Sire?” Alva said.

“Go and…” Carlo looked up at Alva with a sigh, his patience clearly wearing thin with the Duke’s pompous attitude. “Oh, go and do whatever it is you did to entertain yourself when my father was still alive, Fernando.”

And with that, his patience had completely snapped, and had he not known that Carlo was completely miserable and that that was the reason he had treated Alva like that, Lerma would have laughed. Alva also seemed to know that Carlo was not himself currently for, although he went slightly red as though he had been slapped across the face (which he figuratively had been), he bowed and hastened out of the room. He clearly hadn’t wanted to face Carlo’s ire for the second time that day, even though the wind had obviously been knocked out of Carlo.

For a second, Lerma doubted whether leaving Carlo on his own when he was in this bad of a state was a good idea. But when he looked at Carlo’s face properly, even under the dim light from the candles, he could see how determined he was, even though he was still upset. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt himself while Rodrigo was still at risk.

“Sire… Carlo, would you like me to remain with you while you receive the Inquisitor?” Lerma asked, if only to get some kind of response out of Carlo.

Carlo stared up at him as though he couldn’t comprehend the words being said to him, before he finally replied. “I…” He started again. “I hope you won’t be offended if I decide in your absence. For now, I just need to be alone.”

“Of course.” Lerma bowed and left, going in the direction of the Grand Inquisitor’s rooms. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to come back to Carlo having killed himself, but he tried to push the feeling out of his mind. Carlo had been angry enough when Pedro had been there, and Rodrigo needed him. He wouldn’t do anything while Rodrigo was still in need of help.

There was a guard that Lerma hadn’t seen before standing outside the entrance to the Grand Inquisitor’s rooms. He was a short, young-looking man, covered with freckles and with red hair, and had he not just found out that the Inquisition had tried to kill Carlo and Rodrigo a few minutes ago, Lerma would probably have felt just as fatherly towards him as he did to anybody obviously younger than he was. As it was, however, he regarded the boy with suspicion, even though he wasn’t actively attached to the Inquisition.

“The King requests that the Grand Inquisitor attend his rooms for an audience immediately,” Lerma said.

The boy bowed. “Shall I go and summon the Inquisitor for you, sir?” he asked.

“I should like to go and tell him myself, if you are allowed to let me in.”

The boy thought for a moment. Even though he didn’t trust him, Lerma hadn’t the heart to tell him that it would end poorly if he said no. “I… don’t think my Captain would have any problem with that,” he said thoughtfully. He bowed again and stood aside, opening the door to allow Lerma through.

“Is your Captain Pedro, young man?” Lerma asked, before he went through the door.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied. “Why do you ask, sir?”

“Your captain will not have the option to have a problem with it for much longer,” Lerma said quietly. “I advise that you seek another mode of employ as soon as possible.” He kept his voice low and gently put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He could feel all his bones through his doublet, but he supposed that was just because he was going through an awkward and gangly phase. “Keep this to yourself for now.”

“Of… course, sir.” He looked after Lerma, puzzled, as he walked down the passageway.

One of the Inquisitor’s unnerving monks apprehended Lerma as soon as he walked into the Grand Inquisitor’s rooms, and once Lerma regained control of his heartbeat, because the monk truly had appeared from nowhere, he repeated what he had told the guard standing outside: “The King requests that your Master appear before him at once.”

This monk, however, didn’t have the same habit of wordlessly gliding away as soon as he was addressed to find the Inquisitor, and put his head to the side. “And who should I announce as his emissary?” His voice was strangely familiar.

“The Count of Lerma,” Lerma replied. “I thought the Inquisitor’s attendants had all taken a vow of silence,” he added.

“Not at all, my Lord.” This monk had a kind voice, low and pleasant to listen to, but he still sounded imposing and magisterial. Lerma enjoyed listening to him speak. “That would be… highly impractical. We maintain quiet because the Grand Inquisitor’s hearing is so heightened through his lack of sight.”

“Ah, of course.” This was a perfectly logical explanation. Lerma was glad that he had received it. “May I attend the Inquisitor’s rooms with you?”

“The Grand Inquisitor does not enjoy being barged in upon, at his great age,” the monk said. From anybody else it would have sounded like an insult, but Lerma could have sworn that this monk winked as he spoke, and it was clearly said in fun. In any case, Lerma had no opportunity to mull it over further, because the monk swished around, taking great care to allow his robes to billow around him as he turned to face away from Lerma, and floated off down the hallway. Theatrical.

Lerma was left awaiting the Grand Inquisitor in the hallway, tapping his fingers against his arm and looking around the sparsely-decorated walls as he waited. In spite of the Grand Inquisitor’s “great age”, Lerma was not kept waiting long: The Grand Inquisitor, attended by only the same monk as had just spoken to Lerma, holding onto his arm, paraded himself down the hallway. The Inquisitor’s free arm was extended out to the side, his hand brushing against the wall to get an idea of the contours of the hallway.

“The Count of Lerma,” the monk announced, in a softer voice.

“The King has finally deigned to hear from his Inquisitor?” He did not have the same pleasant tone that his attendant had. Instead, his voice sounded like metal grating on stone, harsh and dark and making Lerma wince with surprise. He had only ever heard the Inquisitor speak from a distance, but up close his voice was painful to listen to.

“He has, Father,” Lerma continued.

Surely, he must have known why. Alva had only ordered him to produce his correspondences a couple of hours ago and the man seemed never to forget. Lerma held his breath.

“Wonderful news.” The tone of the Inquisitor’s tone was completely flat. “He has learned _something_ from his estimable sire, then.” He paused, and the monk whispered something in his ear. “Of course. I will let you proceed on ahead to warn his Lordship of my imminent arrival.” Given the state that Carlo had been in when he had left, Lerma thought he might well need that. “We old men walk slowly; you should have plenty of time.”

Lerma was only too happy to be dismissed. He rushed out of the oppressively dark rooms that the Grand Inquisitor kept, and found himself face-to-face with Alva, who looked pale faced and horrified. “Lerma,” he said.

“Can you walk at the same time as sharing news?” Lerma indicated the direction of the King’s rooms, and he then started walking ahead of Alva without checking to make sure the Duke was following him. He was keen to get away from the Inquisitor and his rooms, but Alva could probably sympathise with that; he had been sent to the Inquisitor before and he hadn’t seemed happy when he had returned.

“I know where Rodrigo is,” Alva growled, close to Lerma’s ear.

Lerma did not need to be told where he meant – he could only have been to one place with a prisoner. Lerma nearly fell over, but he merely quickened his pace. “Do not tell Carlo,” Lerma hissed in response. “He will already not be pleased to see you,” he said, “given that he threw you out.”

“I wasn’t planning to intrude upon him,” Alva said, as they reached the King’s rooms. “I thought you might want warning in advance; I was going to advise you much the same as you just told me.” With that, Alva peeled off and headed presumably back towards his own rooms to wait for news of Rodrigo there rather than in Carlo’s rooms, so that he would be safely out of range of Carlo using candles as projectiles.

Carlo was, if anything, more agitated than he had been when Lerma had left. He was pacing through around in the bedchamber, looking at the papers – at the deeds turning Rodrigo’s land over to the inquisition, at the two death warrants – as though they could tell him what state Rodrigo would be in when he finally got to him.

He immediately jumped at Lerma as he re-entered the room. “The Inquisitor is not with you?”

“He will be shortly. He sent me ahead to tell you.”

Carlo made a gesture that made Lerma worry that he was about to become the latest victim of his ire, but he caught himself, seeming to realise that this was nothing to do with Lerma and nothing worth losing his temper over again. “Thank you, Lerma.”

“Would you like me to stay with you during this audience?” Lerma asked.

“I…” Carlo seemed to think about it for a moment. “Yes. Please.” He twisted a ring around on his finger. It was on his left ring finger even though he knew for a fact that Carlo wasn’t married, and Lerma was sure he had seen one like it before, and it wasn’t a ring of state. When he realised that Lerma was looking at it, Carlo abruptly removed the ring and secreted it away in his doublet.

Lerma began to apologise for making Carlo uncomfortable, but as soon as he opened his mouth the door opened, and the Inquisitor and the monk walked through the door. Carlo waved Lerma away to sit on one of the seats in the room. “Father.” Carlo was obviously speaking through gritted teeth. The monk and Lerma exchanged a look.

“I am then before the King?” the Inquisitor asked.

“You are,” Carlo confirmed tersely.

“Excellent.” The Inquisitor matched Carlo’s tone. Lerma began to worry. “It is usual to receive the Grand Inquisitor immediately upon one’s ascension to the throne.”

“I will keep that in mind for next time I am raised to the throne of Spain,” Carlo all but growled. The monk helped the Grand Inquisitor to a seat, and then went to join Lerma over the in corner. “For now,” Carlo said, producing the two death warrants, “I should like some sort of explanation for _these_.”

Lerma’s eyes widened. The monk seemed confused. Only the Inquisitor’s attitude remained unchanged. “I fear, sire, that I am ill-fitted to do so.” He was aware that it was paper, yes, but of very little besides that.

“Then I will tell you what I am holding.” Carlo sounded seconds from punching the old man in the face, and Lerma could tell that the monk was genuinely concerned that he was going to. “This–” Carlo rustled the crumpled land deed in his left hand. “ _This_ is a deed confirming that the lands and estates formerly belonging to Rodrigo, Duke of Posa, have been signed over to the Spanish Inquisition, by my father, King Filippo II.” Carlo spoke slowly and deliberately.

“Indeed, sire?” The Inquisitor raised his eyebrows. “You ordered me here to show me that?”

“You know why I ordered you here.” For the first time, the Inquisitor looked a little frightened. Carlo sounded so furious that Lerma could see in his face and in the slight change in his posture that the Inquisitor was at least a little concerned for his future. “ _These_ –” He didn’t so much rustle as crumple the two death warrants in his right hand, directly in front of the Inquisitor’s face as though that was what he was imagining doing to the Inquisitor’s skull. “ _These_ are death warrants. One bears the name of the Duke of Posa. The other is in _my_ name.”

“And even _I_ am aware that they were signed by your father,” the Inquisitor shot back instantly. “I may be a priest, but I cannot directly communicate with the dead. Take it up with Filippo directly, if you so wish.” This was an obvious threat against Carlo. Lerma had had enough and went to get up, but the monk beside him put his hand out to steady him.

“The Duke’s death warrant received both my father’s signature and your signature,” Carlo said. The Inquisitor twitched as though he had been slapped. “However…” He clearly wanted to shove his own death warrant in the face of the Grand Inquisitor, but he knew that it would be futile. Instead, he crumpled it like he had the land deeds, but more violently, and flung it just past the Inquisitor’s shoulder. “Yours is the only signature on my death warrant. It is dated the morning after the night that the Duke of Posa’s death warrant was signed.”

The Inquisitor began to speak again, but Carlo cut him off. “I am sure that you are aware that I got shot in prison, and I am sure that you know as well as I do that it was no coincidence that my death warrant was signed the night before.”

“The Duke of Posa–” The Inquisitor leaped up, surprisingly rapidly for such an elderly man.

Carlo grabbed his face and wrenched his chin up to force him to look into his face. “Rodrigo is a good man, and a better man than you could ever hope to be. He has done more acts of good for the suffering people of the world in his twenty-one years on this earth than you or I could ever hope to do in eighty or even a hundred years.” He didn’t let go of the Inquisitor, but he loosened his grip on his jaw slightly. “Your head is insecure enough on your shoulders at present, Priest. You would do well to hold your tongue.”

He dropped him. The Inquisitor collapsed back into the chair. “Especially since you are before the King of Spain. Or had you forgotten that?” The Inquisitor seemed stunned and, for once, had no readily available response. “Your options both lead to your death for attempted regicide,” Carlo said.

“Then it matters not what you do to me.”

“ _I have not handed down my sentence yet, and you will remain silent until I do._ ” Even Lerma, who knew Carlo’s true, meek nature, shrunk back into his seat when Carlo spoke like this, and the monk looked utterly terrified. “Either you tell me, immediately, where the Duke of Posa is and die as soon as his safety is assured,” Carlo spoke slowly, his tone still aggressive, “or, should you not divulge his location, we will turn your Inquisition’s tactics against you.”

The Inquisitor began to speak again. Carlo wrenched him upright by his jaw for the second time so that they were face to face, and the Inquisitor looked as though he feared that his heart would stop there and then. “ _After you confess under torture to where you are keeping the Duke, and once I am personally assured of his safety, I shall kill you myself, by whichever method I feel appropriate for a traitor such as you._ ”

He dropped the Grand Inquisitor again, and he collapsed down onto the seat with a thud. Carlo turned slightly, so that he could just about see Lerma and the monk out of the corner of his eye. “Count, summon the Duke of Alva to my quarters.”

Lerma couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. The monk barrelled out of the room a moment after and made an immediately break for the door before Lerma could stop him. It took Lerma all of two minutes to find and return Alva to the King’s rooms, and Alva didn’t need to ask what was happening to know.

The Inquisitor was still sat in the chair he had been in when Lerma had left. He now didn’t look like the imposing monster of the inquisition that Lerma had thought him to be for all these years, but rather a defeated and frightened old man. Alva made no attempt to assess the situation, simply bowing. “Don’t ingratiate, Alva,” Carlo said, but his voice wasn’t aggressive.

Lerma looked askance at Carlo, who continued to speak: “Alva, take the Grand Inquisitor from this place and back to his rooms, where you will guard him until Lerma returns to you.” Lerma bowed. “I-I have something of great importance to attend to.”

The Inquisitor’s expression changed slightly at the crack that had appeared in Carlo’s kingly veneer, but his face dropped again when Alva grabbed him and dragged him upright. Whatever he had seen while he had been taking Pedro to the dungeon had knocked the obsequiousness out of him, that much was obvious as he removed the Inquisitor from Carlo’s rooms.

“Did he tell you where he is?” Lerma asked softly as Carlo sat back down on the bed. Carlo drew his knees up against his chest and nodded. “Where?” When Carlo didn’t respond, Lerma continued to press him for information. “Carlo, tell me what he told you. I can’t help you if you don’t.” Lerma crouched down in front of him again.

“He’s been here in the palace the whole time,” Carlo finally blurted out, and when he finally vocalised it, he almost seemed to collapse into himself from the effort, and he burst into tears again. Lerma got to his feet and sat on the bed beside him again, holding Carlo as he sobbed into his own arms for the second time that day. “I don’t–” Carlo tried and failed to put what he was feeling into words, but there was no way he could express how horrified he felt by what he had just found out. When he finally stopped sobbing and caught his breath, he started the sentence again. “I feel like it’s my fault somehow; as though I’m responsible.”

“Carlo…” Lerma rubbed his back.

“I didn’t even think to…” Carlo gestured, and Lerma knew what he meant.

“The Inquisition don’t usually hold people here, they have their own places to take prisoners to,” Lerma said. “And you have been recovering from a gunshot wound.”

“He thought he was going to die,” Carlo said.

There was nothing Lerma could really say to counter that. Instead, he squeezed Carlo’s shoulders and pulled away to force him to look at him. “It isn’t your fault.”

There was a back route through the palace from the King’s rooms that finished behind a tapestry near the entrance to the dungeons. Carlo had never encountered it before, but Lerma clearly had, as he lead Carlo down this passage in silence, half jogging before him. Carlo didn’t speak but Lerma occasionally heard him sniffle behind him, and when Lerma finally pulled the tapestry out of the way, he could see that Carlo was crying again.

“Are you still going to leave tomorrow?” Lerma asked, trying to distract Carlo so that he wouldn’t cause any more upset for Rodrigo when they saw each other again.

“I hadn’t even thought,” Carlo said anxiously. “Should I? I mean, would it…?” He seemed to know what he was trying to get across, but he was struggling to find the words necessary to express his point. Lerma couldn’t blame him; Carlo was afraid to begin with, and he had just received possibly the worst news he had ever received in his life.

Lerma was still determined to try to help. “See how Rodrigo is first,” Lerma said. “He might not feel able to leave tomorrow, or he might want to leave as soon as possible. Whichever it is, I will happily organise it for you.” Lerma almost expected more sniffling and crying, but instead Carlo flung himself into his arms. Lerma stroked his hair. “Do you want me to stay out here?” Lerma asked. “Or should I go in with you?”

Carlo shook his head. “Stay out here.” He looked towards the entrance to the dungeon. He found himself wondering, for a moment, whether this was how Rodrigo had felt when he went to visit him before Carlo had been shot. “When we come back, go to the Inquisitor’s rooms.”

Lerma nodded, patting Carlo’s shoulder as he finally pulled away from him and went towards the stairs. Lerma settled in beside the tapestry, but then thought. “Oh, Carlo, wait.” He unfastened and removed his cloak and gave it to Carlo, who wound it around his hands for a moment and then proceeded down into the dungeon. Lerma watched his back until he was no longer visible, and then leaned his head back against the wall. Carlo could well be a long time, and he would probably be distressed when he returned, and Lerma needed all the emotional preparation for this that he could get.

Carlo desperately wanted Rodrigo back, yes, and the fact that he knew that Rodrigo was here, and that, as the King of Spain he could simply walk in and say that Rodrigo was pardoned and have that be the end of it was a convenience. If Rodrigo felt strong enough, he could be in and out again, this time with Rodrigo, in a matter of minutes. The fact of the matter was, though, that Carlo was deathly afraid. The Inquisitor might have lied to him about Rodrigo being alive, or Rodrigo might simply reject him. The main thought in his mind, though, was that this was a trap. This was a trap, and he was going to be shot again.

He was already beginning to regret not taking Lerma in with him, but the state Rodrigo would probably be in would be awful. He knew Rodrigo well enough to know that he didn’t even want Carlo to see him in that state – not really. Until they had nearly argued in the garden after Rodrigo had threatened Éboli there had only been one occasion, or at least only two when they were both adults, upon which Rodrigo had allowed Carlo to see him weaken even slightly. The first of these had been the death of his father and brother, and even then, it had been a last resort. Rodrigo had arrived unannounced in Carlo’s rooms shortly after finding out, and Carlo had practically had to force the information from him. The second had been at the funeral, a week later.

Otherwise, Rodrigo was determined not to show when he was upset. Carlo was so sensitive, he would say, and he didn’t want to upset him. Rodrigo was right, of course – Carlo couldn’t stand to see another person crying, or even vaguely upset, but he was prepared to set this aside if Rodrigo needed comfort. The problem was convincing Rodrigo that it was alright for him to need comfort and convincing him to ask.

Even after he had returned from Malta, Rodrigo had hardly spoken a word about what he had experienced. In spite of the fact that he and Rodrigo had been close friends for some time at that point, and the fact that their romantic relationship had begun before Rodrigo had left for Malta, Carlo only knew that he had seen everybody he knew die and thought he would follow from, of all people, Alva.

When he had asked, Rodrigo had gently but definitively declined Carlo’s offer of somebody to confide in, if he needed it. Carlo knew that Rodrigo was just trying to protect him from how traumatic the experience had been but all of him had still wanted to convince Rodrigo that it was alright; that he could cope with it if it would help him.

This was bound to be worse than even that.

Carlo pushed the sick feeling in his mind down and tried to replace it with the kingly veneer he had been developing, but the further into the dungeon he got, the more difficult it became to force himself to act like the King and not the anxious child that he felt like he was. He almost allowed himself to fall down into the way of thinking his father had inadvertently forced upon him, but he realised quickly that this was going to be of no help to anybody.

Carlo walked through the dungeon, trying not to peer into the empty cells, until he finally found the guard on duty. There was only one, for what Carlo assumed to be two prisoners – Rodrigo and Pedro. The thought of them being in the same place made him sick with anger. The thought of Rodrigo being treated like a criminal made him sick with anger, too.

The guard was a tall, skinny man, who looked to be a little older than Lerma. Even in the half-light, Carlo could see the wrinkles on his skin from years out in the sun, and the scraggly, greasy, greying hair that hung down around his shoulders. Carlo resisted the urge to grab him by his hair or his throat and demand the keys to Rodrigo’s cell, and instead cleared his throat.

“What do you–” The man started to demand something of Carlo, but as he realised who he was speaking too he suddenly fell silent and dropped to the ground so quickly it was almost as if Carlo _had_ done something to injure him.

“Get up,” Carlo growled. The man scrambled to his feet, obviously panicked, and Carlo took a moment to collect himself.

This was a guard connected to the Spanish Inquisition, the institution that had tried to have him killed and the institution that were currently holding his lover in prison and probably torturing him. The fact that he had dared to try to ingratiate and prostrate himself at Carlo’s feet as though he respected him grated on Carlo’s already fraught nerves to the extent that, had he not been powerfully holding back his emotions, he would have struck him across the face for his temerity.

“Sire – I – why are…?” He stuttered out various sentence fragments, seeming not to notice Carlo’s expression growing increasingly furious.

“Where are you holding the Duke of Posa?” No acknowledgement of the other man’s humanity. Carlo just wanted to get Rodrigo and leave as soon as they were both able to, rather than have to stand here and listen to a man who may well have been the one who shot him.

“Sire, he–”

“Give me the keys to his cell, take me to him, and then leave. Immediately.” Carlo glared at him. “I have pardoned him, and if I find that you had any part in his torture then I will see that the same punishment is meted out to you.”

The guard descended to just making noises rather than speaking. He unhooked a ring of keys from his belt with trembling hands and practically sprinting down the corridor with Carlo following him. He had already reached the door to the cell by the time Carlo got there and he was frantically finding the appropriate keys. Carlo stared at him, trying not to think about the sort of state that Rodrigo might be in.

“This one i-is for the door, Sire,” the guard managed to choke out, giving Carlo the first key. “This one is–”

“I am quite aware, thank you,” Carlo snapped, snatching a second, smaller key from the guard’s shaking hand as it was offered to him. “If you go now,” Carlo hissed, leaning extremely close to the guard’s face as he spoke, “you may be allowed to keep your head.”

That was all the warning that the guard needed, and he took off at a run down the corridor of cells. Carlo didn’t want the conversation he and Rodrigo had to be overheard by anybody, let alone this guard, so he waited until he heard the entrance to the dungeon open and then close again to finally think about opening the door.

There were various cage-like cells, all empty and all designed to be easy to look into by whoever found themselves to be attending to the prisoners that day, that he and the guard had walked past on the way down here. The cell that Rodrigo was in, however, was more like a small room. Looking at the distance between it and the two cells that it was between, it was no bigger than the bed Carlo had been sleeping in for the last few months.

The wooden door to the cell had a massive lock, and the tiny window was placed just higher than Carlo would have been able to see into without standing up on his toes or craning his neck. While the gunshot wound in his hip had mostly healed, it was still painful to exert the muscles too much, so he didn’t try to. He still needed a moment to collect himself, though, so he rested his forehead against the door for a few seconds and tried to force his heart beat and breathing to slow down to a reasonable pace.

He had fainted a lot in his youth and Rodrigo had always been the one to catch him. Rodrigo was currently the other side of the cell door, possibly having heard that he would be released although Carlo didn’t hold out much hope, either that Rodrigo had been physically able to hear the conversation or that he had been listening if it was possible. Carlo didn’t want to think about it too much – the possibility that Rodrigo had simply shut out the rest of the world while he had been imprisoned was too upsetting.

He had thought enough about what he might be about to face when he finally saw Rodrigo again, and the anticipation was making him feel worse and worse with every second. After what felt like hours, Carlo finally pulled his forehead away from the door and opened his eyes. He inhaled deeply, and then put the key to the door in the lock and turned it. When the lock clunked threateningly, he slowly pushed the door open, hardly daring to look into the cell.

When he finally managed to pull his eyes away from the ceiling to where Rodrigo was, he saw that he was curled up and trembling. It could have been with fear or with cold – Carlo didn’t know which. Rodrigo had always been sensitive to the cold as it was and a month in prison being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition had clearly not done any good for him.

Rodrigo had his back to the door and with one arm pulled up over his head and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The other hung by his side, with a metal cuff around it securing him to the wall. This was what infuriated Carlo the most, or at least right now – Rodrigo wasn’t in any state to try to run. He had never seen anybody in the immediate aftermath of being tortured by the Inquisition and even he knew that. There was no reason to shackle him other than sheer cruelty.

But he was still alive, and he needed help. Those two things were what mattered the most right now, not the fact that Carlo was furious with the Inquisitor, with the jailers, with everybody who had been involved in Rodrigo’s imprisonment. That wasn’t what mattered now – yes, the fact that Carlo felt awful was significant, but it was less important than the knowledge that Rodrigo had been tortured.

“Rodrigo?” Carlo’s voice was soft, and he made no attempt just yet to touch him. He had fallen foul of some part of Rodrigo that had never completely left Malta or Flanders in the past before and he had been completely healthy. He knew that Rodrigo wouldn’t mean it, he never did because even though he had been a soldier he was a naturally gentle man, but sometimes his first response to being touched unexpectedly was to lash out at whoever had touched him.

Carlo was close enough that he could have reached over and put his arms around Rodrigo right then, but he didn’t. He moved forward a couple of steps so that he was just out of range of Rodrigo punching him if he had accidentally startled him and knelt down on the floor of the cell just behind him. He waited for a moment, but he got no response. “Rodrigo, are you awake?” Carlo could just barely see Rodrigo’s chest rising and falling under his shirt, but he made no effort to move.

It was almost as if he was blocking Carlo’s presence out of his mind for some reason, even though every time Carlo made a noise, he could see Rodrigo’s breath quicken just slightly. He didn’t know why Rodrigo was trying to ignore him but every second he became more and more anxious that something truly unthinkable had become of Rodrigo. Carlo slowly got to his feet and when he did, he saw Rodrigo shrink slightly into himself and again he wanted to lean down and pull Rodrigo into his arms, just to get some reaction from him.

He didn’t care now if Rodrigo hit him – he was confident anyway that he wouldn’t – he just wanted Rodrigo to acknowledge him somehow. They could try to sort out what was wrong and what sort of help Rodrigo needed out of the dungeon – but Carlo was getting more and more nervous being here with every second and he couldn’t bear staying for any longer than necessary, especially if Rodrigo was as unhealthy as he looked.

Carlo sat back down on the floor beside Rodrigo, this time at such an angle that Rodrigo would probably be able to see him in his peripheral vision, and close enough to him that Rodrigo could just slump over into his arms. When Rodrigo still didn’t react, Carlo rested his hand on the back of Rodrigo’s neck, because he could see a welt on Rodrigo’s upper back that he didn’t want to touch for fear of hurting him again.

Rodrigo’s skin was freezing cold under his hand, and of all things this was what angered Carlo the most.

Rodrigo had always been so sensitive to the cold; Carlo had sometimes teased him for wrapping himself up in blankets when it began to get even a tiny bit colder in the lead up to winter. It was cold here even for Carlo, who preferred the relative cool of Madrid to the warmer places in Spain even if Rodrigo couldn’t stand it in winter, and he wanted to just wrap Rodrigo up in Lerma’s cloak and leave immediately, or at least immediately after he had unshackled him from the wall.

Rodrigo’s reaction when he turned to look at who had touched him suggested that they were going to be here for a while. Carlo almost expected to be punched or somehow injured from the look of horror on his face when Rodrigo turned to face him, and honestly, he would have accepted it. Rodrigo had been through enough before he had been imprisoned and being touched unexpectedly or without his permission had always made him feel jumpy.

Rather than what Carlo had expected to happen, though, Rodrigo curled into himself, burying his head in his hands and sobbing quietly. Carlo thought, for a second, that he didn’t know what to do but then Rodrigo slumped against his chest as though he had lost the will to stay sat up. Carlo’s arms went around him properly, and he found himself cradling Rodrigo’s head against his chest and kissing his temple.

He had still had the key to the shackle in his hand when he had sat down, but he had dropped it when Rodrigo had started crying. Now that he was partly sitting down with Rodrigo leaning against him, he could feel the teeth of it as they cut slightly into his thigh, but he wasn’t aware that it hurt – and in any case, he didn’t want to let go of Rodrigo for even a second to pick it back up again. He pulled Rodrigo onto his lap properly so that he wasn’t on the floor and sat at what would have been an uncomfortable angle even had he not been covered with injuries.

As he did this, Rodrigo moved his right arm – the one with the shackle around the wrist – so that it wasn’t pressed against Carlo’s stomach. Carlo hadn’t seen his hand or his wrist before now because Rodrigo had been hanging onto the front of his shirt, but now that he had moved Carlo could see the dried blood running down his arm from under it and the way his hand was clenched in a fist, slightly swollen by obvious infection. This was the thing that made him particularly angry, but that wouldn’t help now. Even though he was shaking with anger now, he picked up the key from where it had fallen behind him and supported Rodrigo’s arm with one hand. Rodrigo winced and made a noise as though he was afraid to be touched.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Carlo said softly, as he quickly unlocked the shackle. When he saw slightly more clearly just how bad the damage was, Carlo pulled Rodrigo’s head against his chest so that he couldn’t see, even though he knew that he would one they were out of the cell, and quickly opened and removed the shackle. Carlo felt Rodrigo tense against him and apologised again, and even though this time it wasn’t even words, just a noise, he could tell that Rodrigo knew what he was trying to get across.

Carlo put his arms properly around Rodrigo and held him for a while. Neither of them spoke, because Carlo didn’t know what to say and Rodrigo wasn’t in any state to string a sentence together, and Carlo found himself listening to Rodrigo trying to stop himself sobbing.

It struck him suddenly and almost as painfully as being shot had been. Rodrigo had probably thought that Carlo was dead for this whole time, like he had thought Rodrigo was dead once he had found out what had happened to him. He was at a complete loss for what to do for a few seconds, but the realisation slowly dawned upon him as he looked down at Rodrigo. He took hold of Rodrigo’s left hand because he had felt him try to pull away when Carlo had tried to move his right arm and gently kissed his knuckles. When he felt Rodrigo stop sobbing and relax against him, he brought Rodrigo’s hand to rest on his chest over his heart, just under his unfastened doublet.


	7. Chapter 7

Carlo continued to hold onto Rodrigo for a long time, with Rodrigo’s hand resting on his chest and Carlo’s face buried in Rodrigo’s hair. Neither of them said anything yet, and Carlo could slowly feel Rodrigo begin to stop trembling as he held him, although he was obviously still afraid and cold. Carlo was no longer holding the cloak that Lerma had given him – he had forgotten he even had it as soon as he had opened the door – but now he moved one arm from around Rodrigo and reached for it.

Rodrigo didn’t move for a few seconds and Carlo was slightly suspicious that he had just fallen asleep or even fallen unconscious while Carlo was holding him, but he jolted suddenly when Carlo wrapped the cloak around him. Carlo shushed him and rested his cheek against the top of Rodrigo’s head, and his arms went back around Rodrigo as soon as he felt him relax again.

They couldn’t stay here for much longer than they had already been lingering. Quite aside from the oppressive atmosphere Rodrigo was cold and probably sick and Carlo’s side, both where the bullet wound was and radiating out around the right side of his body, was beginning to ache. He was happy and able to support Rodrigo physically until he felt better but he was sore from all he had been through recently, and he was positioned awkwardly with Rodrigo sat on his lap in any case.

“Rodrigo?” When he had Rodrigo’s attention, Carlo lowered his voice again. “I don’t want to force you to stay here for any longer,” he said quietly into Rodrigo’s hair. Rodrigo shifted his head a little way to the side and looked up at Carlo. “I know you’re in pain, but can you move?” he asked.

“Nothing’s broken,” Rodrigo said, “or if it is it’s healed.” But his voice sounded pained in a way that suggested that it would hurt to even _think_ about getting up right now, and Carlo felt his blood boil again at the thought that anybody could have harmed Rodrigo at all, let alone broken any of his bones.

“Do you need me to help you get up again?” Carlo asked, and Rodrigo didn’t reply verbally but he did shake his head the slightest bit. Carlo let Rodrigo get to his feet first and got up himself once the feeling returned to his legs after Rodrigo had been sitting on him.

Rodrigo looked uncomfortable now that he was standing, all his weight on one foot as though he was about to run and his body swaying slightly as though the exertion of getting to his feet had knocked all the energy out of him. Carlo was at a loss for what to do to help him, until he felt Rodrigo wrap his arms around him. Carlo rested his head against Rodrigo’s chest on instinct.

As soon as Carlo returned to himself, he pulled away – but not before he pressed his lips briefly to Rodrigo’s shoulder. Rodrigo didn’t reciprocate, or even try to look Carlo in the eyes, but he gently brushed his fingers over Carlo’s cheek as Carlo went to take his hand.

“We need to leave,” Carlo said. “I’m sorry – I…” He looked around. “I can’t stand to be here and I’m sure you don’t want to linger here, either.” As he said this, Rodrigo’s head leaned against his shoulder. His hair had grown to about the same length as Carlo’s had been before he had been shot, and it was matted to itself with dried blood. Carlo leaned over and began gently untangling a clump of it as he continued to speak: “When we get back to my apartments, you’ll be safe, I promise.”

Rodrigo didn’t seem to know what to do, but after a few seconds he lightly jerked his head away. When Carlo looked at him, he was shaking again. “We can talk when we get there, nobody will disturb us.” And if they tried, Carlo would have their heads for it. “I have one thing I need to deal with first, though,” he said, trying not to let his tone change even though he was now planning to kill the Inquisitor himself.

Rodrigo finally nodded and, as he wrapped the cloak around himself, Carlo pushed the cell door open. He went out first, and Rodrigo followed him out of the door. Carlo took his hand and lead him back towards the entrance to the dungeon. He didn’t want to ever even think about this place again after today, but he knew that it would always be present in his mind. The emptiness of the cells, and Rodrigo curled up in his arms and sobbing were never going to leave him for the rest of his life.

Carlo wanted to just go back to his apartments and take care of Rodrigo until they were well enough to leave, but he knew that he had to deal with the Grand Inquisitor. Lerma would still be waiting outside the door to tell Alva what Carlo wanted done to the Grand Inquisitor, but it seemed like too little retribution to simply let somebody else perform the deed, even if he felt sure that Alva would not be unhappy to do it. But Carlo had never felt this angry before – not on his own behalf; not even at the auto-da-fé when his father had rejected him, and he had thought Rodrigo had chosen his father over him.

No, seeing Rodrigo hurt and clearly thinking that he was going to die – and worse the fact that he looked like he would have simply accepted his death – was the worst thing that Carlo could imagine. He couldn’t even bring himself to put his arms around him; he looked too fragile and scared and Carlo was afraid that if he even touched him for a second, he would break.

He shied away when Carlo got too near to him now that they were walking in any case and now that they were in sufficient light that he could see Rodrigo properly rather than under the dim light of the prison cell, it became obvious that he was covered in dried blood. Carlo couldn’t see any visible wounds, but he supposed that they were under his clothes. There had been a visible welt on his back when Carlo had been holding him, and the sores on his wrist were just covered by the slightly too long sleeve of his shirt.

“Wait here for a minute,” Carlo said as they reached the door. When Rodrigo looked nervous, Carlo pulled him close and kissed his temple again. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you now, not if I have anything to do with it,” Carlo said, pre-empting what had made Rodrigo anxious. He stayed close to Rodrigo with one arm around his waist and stroked his hair to try to calm Rodrigo down again.

When he felt Rodrigo exhale and he could tell that he was still nervous but no longer panicking, he continued, still holding him. “Lerma is waiting outside for me, and I need to speak to him about something before he leaves. As soon as I’m done speaking to him, I’ll come back, I promise.” He felt Rodrigo nod slightly against his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re alright with that?” Another nod, but no verbal reply. Carlo didn’t feel right about it. “Rodrigo?”

“Yes – I…” Rodrigo seemed to know what he wanted to say, but it was almost as if he couldn’t put the words into a coherent order.

Carlo didn’t force him to speak any more – he had just needed confirmation from Rodrigo that he wasn’t too upset to be left on his own, because Carlo would never have forgiven himself if things _had_ been so bad that he was afraid to be alone. He touched his lips briefly to Rodrigo’s shoulder and then pressed their foreheads together for a second before he pulled away and walked back up the stairs to try to tell Lerma what was wrong.

Lerma was still standing against the wall next to the entrance to the dungeon when Carlo opened the door. For a second, Lerma looked like he was going to ask what the situation with Rodrigo was and whether he was alright – but the look on his face made it clear both that Rodrigo was incredibly damaged, and that Carlo was _furious_ on account of it.

Lerma touched his hand to Carlo’s arm to try to bring him out of the reverie he had fallen into as soon as he had left the dungeon and no longer had to be thinking also of Rodrigo. “What would you like me to do?” he asked. “Alva is still waiting with the Inquisitor, and I imagine you want to take care of Rodrigo rather than deal with the Grand Inquisitor’s punishment.”

“I…” Carlo had only thought of getting revenge for Rodrigo, but he had barely thought that Rodrigo just needed somebody to take care of him. He still wanted the Inquisitor dead, yes, but Rodrigo was deeply hurt and needed to be watched. In truth, Carlo was even slightly worried that he would return to the dungeon and Rodrigo would have killed himself. “I want to deal with him myself.”

It was the memory of various auto-da-fés that he had been subjected to, and the number of people, quite aside from Rodrigo, that the Grand Inquisitor had hurt, that motivated Carlo now. Fortunately, Lerma didn’t seem to be concerned about it, or if he was, he didn’t say anything about it to Carlo’s face. Rodrigo needed to be taken care of, yes, but Carlo also wanted to completely eliminate the threat that had put him in this position.

“Shall I tell Alva, or would you like to do that now?” Lerma asked.

“No, you can tell him.” Carlo looked back towards the dungeon. “Tell him I will be along shortly, so not to do anything just yet.”

Lerma nodded, but didn’t leave just yet. “How… how _is_ Rodrigo?” He seemed to consider how best to phrase the question for a long time before he finally asked it, and Carlo could tell that even asking the question made him nervous.

“He’s alive,” Carlo replied, because he could see that that was at least part of what Lerma was asking. When he saw Lerma’s shoulders relax, and he could tell that anything else he had to say would be mainly conjecture, Carlo went on, in a much darker tone. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this unhappy in my life.” Lerma could tell that he was only a little way away from snapping again – which he had only seen very rarely but that absolutely terrified him – so he let Carlo continue. “The worst I have ever seen him was after his father and his brother died. This is unimaginably worse.”

“Will he recover?” Lerma looked truly horrified now, and Carlo could understand why.

“I want to help him,” Carlo said, because he truly didn’t know the answer.

Lerma just nodded. “I’m sure you want to get back to him,” he said after several seconds of consideration. “I shall go and warn Alva that you’ll be along shortly, but…” He frowned and tried to think of how best to phrase what he wanted to say. Yes, _he_ knew what he was trying to get across, but Carlo was so upset that he would probably take it the wrong way. “Take care of Rodrigo _first_. If he’s in as bad of a state now as I imagine him being then he’ll need you to look after him.”

Carlo nodded. “I know that.” He looked away from Lerma for a second to collect himself, and then looked back again. “I think… I think he can recover from the physical injuries,” he said, although he didn’t even sound certain of that. “He’s just… I’m _worried_.”

“Of course you are,” Lerma said, and Carlo looked relieved to have his feelings acknowledged. “It’s _different_ , and of course you’ll have to adjust to it, you both will, quite aside from the fact that he’s physically hurt as well.” He could see that Carlo still needed advice, but he was in no place to offer it. “He loves you. And he knows that you love him. That will help,” he said.

Carlo nodded, but he still didn’t look certain.

“You need to go and take care of Rodrigo, not to be standing out here talking to me,” Lerma said finally. Carlo opened his mouth to say something, but Lerma stopped him. Fortunately, Carlo was in no state to argue. “Take as long as you both need; Alva and I can let the Inquisitor stew in his fear for a while.”

“Good,” Carlo growled. “If nothing else he deserves that for what he’s put Rodrigo through.” He turned, but he then seemed to remember something. He looked back at Lerma over his shoulder for a second before he left to go and collect Rodrigo. “Lerma? I don’t want anybody guarding us tonight.” Lerma made a face but decided to listen in any case. Carlo would know that he was concerned for his safety and there was probably some logical thought behind the decision somewhere. “Rodrigo was scared enough when it was just me, I don’t want anybody else to make things any worse.”

That was fair. “I’ll see to it that you aren’t disturbed,” Lerma said. Carlo disappeared back down the stairs to collect Rodrigo, but not before quickly nodding his thanks at the count. His father hadn’t seen quite how good of a person Lerma was when he had been alive, but Carlo had realised just how much of a blessing he was.

Rodrigo, too, was a good person – or at least he was in Carlo’s eyes. Based on the way he was hunched over, and the fact that he couldn’t meet Carlo’s eye when he walked back into the dungeon, however, he would need a lot of convincing of the fact now. Carlo resented his father, and the Grand Inquisitor, and everybody and everything that had caused this to happen to Rodrigo, more and more with every second that went by – but he tried to subjugate that rage and instead focused on taking care of Rodrigo.

“We’re going to go back up to my apartments,” Carlo said gently, taking Rodrigo’s hand partly to get his attention and partly for comfort, “and then you are going to go to sleep while I deal with the Inquisitor.” Carlo instantly regretted mentioning the Inquisitor, even in passing, when Rodrigo tensed and gripped his hand even tighter. “You look exhausted,” he continued, trying to distract Rodrigo from how afraid he was and how much pain he must have been in. “I can deal with everything else _after_ you’ve rested.”

“It’s mostly bruises,” Rodrigo said, referring to the shadows under his eyes.

“That doesn’t really help,” Carlo said. “It certainly won’t make either of us feel any better.” In the past he would probably have said something like this in a teasing tone. He was certainly always gently poking fun at Rodrigo for his bizarre sleep and eating habits, joking that he would have been better off being some sort of snake that only ate once a week and slept during the day. Now he was completely serious that Rodrigo’s state of mind was clearly fraught, and not being helped by how exhausted he was.

“Maybe not,” Rodrigo agreed. He still hadn’t let go of Carlo’s hand, which was reassuring even if nothing else was. He looked at Carlo, and Carlo could tell that yes, there were some cuts and bruises on his face, but the truth was simply that he just hadn’t slept in a few days. “We should leave.”

That was something that Carlo could agree to. He gave Rodrigo another couple of seconds to collect himself, but then lead him out of the dungeon. Carlo’s eyes adjusted quickly to the bright light, but Rodrigo made a noise and shaded his eyes with his hand for a few seconds.

Lerma had left already, as he had promised, and otherwise the hallway was deserted. Carlo pulled the tapestry to the side and briefly caught sight of the look of suspicion Rodrigo gave him when he did so. “How did you know about this?” he asked quietly.

“I didn’t. Lerma did.” When Carlo said this, Rodrigo seemed to relax a little. Carlo didn’t question it because this was hardly the time, but he certainly found himself wanting to. Instead, he turned slightly to make sure Rodrigo was following him and braced one arm against the wall.

This passageway wasn’t as well-maintained as many of the others in the palace; quite aside from the poor lighting, only from a few torches placed at uneven intervals along the walls, the floorboards were beginning to come loose in places. Carlo was unsteady enough on his feet currently and so was Rodrigo, so he didn’t want to trip, which he was susceptible to doing even when he _wasn’t_ sick. Rodrigo, on the other hand, seemed to be more confident behind him.

Presumably its existence was only known about to a select few, and Carlo tried not to think too hard about the implications of Rodrigo being aware of it, being that it lead to the King’s apartments. He turned every few seconds to make sure Rodrigo was still following him – it was only barely wide enough to walk one at a time, even though he would have preferred to have Rodrigo beside him at such a time – but otherwise neither of them spoke.

It was a massive relief when Carlo finally reached the end of the passageway. He held the tapestry on the other side out of the way for Rodrigo, who ducked under, still shielding his eyes and still looking exhausted. For the second time, Carlo just wanted to put his arms around him and never let go of him again but instead, because he knew that would never help, he made sure there was nobody around who might try to pry into what he was doing with a man who was by all accounts an enemy of the state.

Rodrigo quietly followed him into the bedroom, and Carlo was somewhat relieved that he didn’t just break down in tears again as soon as the door closed. He still looked completely lost, both physically and emotionally, but he seemed to have stopped crying for now. Carlo took his hand again and guided him down onto the bed when he realised that Rodrigo was in no state to form a coherent thought.

Rodrigo sat next to him for a couple of minutes without saying anything, and for the whole time Carlo could think of nothing but how horrible this was. Rodrigo was usually unable to persuade to stop talking, and he would frequently be set off at the slightest provocation, or even at no provocation at all. Now, though, Rodrigo seemed to be too upset to even string a sentence together. He seemed to be afraid to move as well, and Carlo could feel him trembling beside him even though he was still wrapped in the cloak, which now seemed to be slipping down off his shoulders.

For a few seconds, Carlo was afraid to even touch Rodrigo. Now that they were out of the poor lighting of the dungeon, he was able to get an impression of just how badly he had been damaged by his time under the Inquisition’s thrall. He had always been slight and pale, even at his healthiest – his mother and father were both short, and he was the youngest of five siblings and had a twin sister besides, so Carlo supposed that was only fair.

Before he had been imprisoned, Rodrigo had been slender and elegant and still obviously muscular from several military campaigns. He had joked at one point, when Carlo had been surprised at how much more visibly muscular Rodrigo was after he returned from Flanders and Brabant, that there was only so much time he could spend swinging a sword around in a field without putting on a bit of muscle mass. Now, though, Carlo could see most of his bones through his skin, which had gone from fairly pale despite the fact that he was distinctly Mediterranean to look at to practically transparent, and he was curled inwards with his arms around himself.

Carlo finally leaned over and pressed his lips against Rodrigo’s temple. When Rodrigo didn’t flinch away and seemed like he actively wanted Carlo to hold him, Carlo put his arms around him properly and gently pulled him down so that Rodrigo was lying across his lap, his head lying against the crook of Carlo’s left arm, while his right arm was wrapped around Rodrigo’s waist. Carlo moved his hand when Rodrigo shifted around, and he eventually ended up with Rodrigo lying facing him with his face buried in Carlo’s torso.

“Careful,” Carlo said, partly because Rodrigo’s hand was dangerously close to the bullet wound, which still stung if it was touched even though it was almost completely healed. More importantly, though, he couldn’t see where Rodrigo’s injuries were, and he probably wouldn’t for a good while. Rodrigo needed to lie down for a while first.

“Sorry.” Rodrigo moved so that his hand was slightly further away from Carlo’s side. Carlo wanted to stroke his hair or do something to comfort him – but now that he was in full light, he could see that Rodrigo had various bruises along his hairline and on his jaw, mostly hidden under layers of grime and dried blood but still undeniably there. Carlo could barely stand to touch Rodrigo, he looked so fragile, but Rodrigo seemed as though he just wanted Carlo to hold him rather than not be touched.

He had needed Carlo’s attention practically constantly after his father died, and again after he came back from Malta, and Carlo still felt guilty for upsetting him and accidentally rejecting him when he had come back from Flanders. The least he could do was look after him now, when he had been through possibly the worst ordeal Carlo could imagine. He wanted to look after him, of course, because he couldn’t bear to be separated from Rodrigo, but he felt dreadful that this had been happening under his nose and nobody had told him about it.

“Didn’t you…?” Rodrigo made a gesture as though he had forgotten how to string the words he needed together.

Carlo was well-enough attuned to him that he knew what he meant. “It isn’t as important as you,” he said. “I can stay here for as long as you need me to.”

Rodrigo didn’t try to reply verbally this time – Carlo could tell that simply finding the words and then making himself say them in a way that was coherent was too much effort after all the exhaustion he had been through, and he couldn’t hold it against him. Besides that, he had loved Rodrigo and been by his side for years, and they no longer needed to speak to one another verbally all the time – Carlo could tell what Rodrigo wanted to say without him needing to say it, and Rodrigo knew that Carlo understood him.

Rodrigo half way sat up after a minute, and when he did, Carlo could see several bruises spreading across his shoulder and collarbone. Most of it was starting to yellow, spreading across his sternum and, from what Carlo could see where his shirt was unfastened, down his chest and stomach, but as it extended towards his shoulder it became more purple in colour and visibly fresh. Carlo reached and gently rested his fingers against it and was somehow surprised when Rodrigo didn’t flinch as though he had inflicted it.

“How?” Carlo said. “And by whom?” The implication of this second comment was obvious, even if Rodrigo couldn’t tell him the name of the person who attacked him.

“That…” Rodrigo made a face as he tried to form the words. “That massive guard.”

Carlo knew that Rodrigo meant Pedro, and for a minute felt queasy that he had exchanged words with the guard before he had found out that he had been linked to Rodrigo’s imprisonment, even if it had only been a brief conversation. There was no point in dwelling on it, in any case. Rodrigo needed to be looked after even if the Inquisitor _was_ waiting for him, and, as Lerma had pointed out, he could stew in his own fear for a while longer. He had caused both Carlo and Rodrigo far too much pain to just be despatched quickly and painlessly.

Rodrigo moved again, now to lie next to Carlo on the bed. Carlo noted, as Rodrigo laid down, that he barely moved his right arm and that he kept Carlo positioned between himself and the door. Carlo didn’t need to be told the reason why, and, like just about everything else he had seen Rodrigo go through that day, it infuriated him. He tried not to over-react, though, and instead laid on the bed beside Rodrigo. Rodrigo seemed to find just having somebody near him and holding him helped, that and the fact that it was warmer in here than it had been in the dungeon.

Even so, Rodrigo was still shaking, mostly because he was lying on top of the covers. He had curled up on top of the blankets, with the cloak still wrapped around him, which would have been amusing if Carlo hadn’t known that the reason was that he was too sore and probably too physically and mentally exhausted to want to bother doing anything to make himself more comfortable, he would have found it endearing. As it was, Carlo just found it to be more to be upset about.

Rather than dwelling on it, though, Carlo carefully rearranged the covers so that he could pull them over himself and Rodrigo. When Rodrigo realised what he was doing, he pulled the cloak off from around his shoulders and put it on the chair beside the bed. Carlo dithered for a moment about whether to just get into bed with Rodrigo and ignore his responsibilities for a while, and eventually the side of him that just wanted to be with Rodrigo won out over the side of him that was furious with the Inquisitor and everybody connected to him.

He laid down beside Rodrigo and pulled the covers over the two of them, ending up with Rodrigo lying with his face against his chest. Carlo leaned down and kissed his hair, before trying to arrange his arms in a way that allowed him to hold onto Rodrigo, partly for warmth and partly for comfort, without accidentally touching any of the wounds on his back or his sides. He didn’t know where they were, which was part of the worry, and he could tell from the stilted, cautious way Rodrigo moved that there were several of them and that they were all hurting him terribly.

Carlo laid beside him and tried not to move too much, because it seemed that they had found a position where he could still have his arms around Rodrigo without hurting him, for a few minutes. Carlo could hear and feel Rodrigo’s breath against his chest, and for a while he thought that he was either already asleep or beginning to fall asleep. He didn’t want to leave while Rodrigo was still asleep, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it would be the only opportunity he would get to deal with the Grand Inquisitor.

Rodrigo suddenly jerked upright, and for a second Carlo thought he’d hurt him. He started asking what was wrong, but Rodrigo abruptly yelped, “God!”

“What happened?” Carlo sat up too, putting his hand on Rodrigo’s cheek to bring him back down to earth.

“I…” Rodrigo looked down at his shirt. “I’m sorry – I…” Once again, Carlo knew what he was talking about, but he could tell that Rodrigo was getting frustrated with his inability to piece together sentences. “I’m–” He gestured again. “I’m covered with blood,” he finally managed to say.

Carlo put his arms around him and rested their foreheads together. “That’s alright,” he said gently, when he felt sure that Rodrigo was at least a little bit less upset. “You need sleep now,” he said, “because you can barely think straight.” Rodrigo made a displeased noise, but he didn’t try to argue. Carlo thought this might have been because he physically couldn’t form an argument. “I have to go and attend to some business,” Carlo continued, once he was sure that Rodrigo was listening, “but when I return–” he carefully didn’t tell Rodrigo what he would returning from, because that didn’t need discussing right now “–I can help you with that.”

He looked at Rodrigo properly, and he could tell that he wasn’t quite as unhappy now as he had been a moment ago. “For now, though, I will find some clean clothes for you.” If nothing else, Carlo wanted to feel as though he was doing _something_ to help Rodrigo, rather than just sitting around and floundering when he got upset.

Rodrigo didn’t look hugely content with the idea, but Carlo really _did_ need to go and take care of the Inquisitor before Alva got bored and killed him himself or Lerma baulked out and let him go. He put his hand gently on the back of Rodrigo’s head, because it seemed as though he didn’t have any head wounds, or at least none that were too bad, and then got up. Most of his clothes would fit Rodrigo, or possibly be a little too big, and in any case, he would just been sleeping in them for now. Carlo would have to find something else for tomorrow, but he also wanted to just completely destroy the prison garb so that neither of them would be unnecessarily reminded of this ordeal.

He found some clothes that wouldn’t be too rough and went back through to the bedroom to give them to Rodrigo. When he returned, he found that Rodrigo had curled up and fallen asleep in his absence. Carlo didn’t want to wake him for several reasons and he really didn’t need to either, so he left the clothes on the bed for Rodrigo to find if he woke again and went down to the Inquisitor’s rooms.

Lerma was waiting outside the apartments, as he had said he would be, and Carlo supposed that he must have stopped looking so murderous in the intervening time he had been with Rodrigo. Of course, he still wasn’t feeling anything except a pure, blinding rage directed at the Grand Inquisitor and everybody who had ever had a favourable interaction with him, but the fact that Rodrigo was definitely safe now, and that he could go back and take care of him, was both reassuring and tethering him somewhat to earth.

“How is he, now that you’ve had some time alone?” Lerma asked.

“He was asleep when I left,” Carlo said. When Lerma looked worried, Carlo continued: “He fell asleep while I was getting him some clean clothes. I’ll hurry back.” Lerma continued not to look happy, but he was clearly determined not to get into an argument. Carlo, on the other hand, just wanted to talk to _somebody_ about what had just happened. “I just… I want to see him die for what he did to Rodrigo. I know it’s irrational and I know I will be viewed poorly for it – but I can’t bear to allow him to just _live_ having let Rodrigo suffer like that; I can’t…”

Carlo didn’t know where he was going with what he had just said, and, by the look of it, he had just succeeded in horrifying Lerma with his sudden disjointed rambling, but he felt better for having vented what was wrong and what was going through his mind. He couldn’t share it with Rodrigo, even if he was awake, because he was already so fragile and traumatised even though Carlo usually told him everything. This left Lerma as the obvious victim of the darker recesses of Carlo’s mind. Somehow, Lerma still understood.

He was left alone as Carlo paced for a few moments outside the door to the Grand Inquisitor’s rooms, before he then finally gathered himself enough to go inside. Lerma hadn’t been invited in – and he didn’t need to be told twice that he wasn’t wanted. He didn’t want to anger Carlo, though, so he remained outside.

Unsurprisingly, he found his thoughts wandering to Rodrigo. He hadn’t seen him since he had been imprisoned; Carlo had been, at least for him, fairly subtle in engineering things so that he and Rodrigo didn’t encounter each other and based on what Carlo had said that was what Rodrigo wanted. He had seen Rodrigo upset once or twice, yes – at the auto-da-fé he had seen him very quickly turn and try to pretend he wasn’t crying after Carlo had been upset with him. Of course, that had been nothing in comparison to being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition; Lerma didn’t even like to imagine the sort of state Rodrigo might be in. He tried to put both Rodrigo’s state and what was likely to be done to the Inquisitor out of his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

Carlo, too, was trying to put the state that he may return to find his lover in as far out of his mind as he could as he swept through the Grand Inquisitor’s rooms. There was only one route through them – a concession to the Inquisitor’s blindness, Carlo supposed – that lead from the entrance through various antechambers until finally arriving in the Grand Inquisitor’s bedchamber. Carlo was accustomed to secret passageways and holes in walls and shortcuts through vast sections of buildings, but he still found Alva and the Grand Inquisitor within a couple of minutes, in the Grand Inquisitor’s office.

The Inquisitor was praying, knelt at a prie-dieu and clutching a gold crucifix in his hands that Carlo had seen on his father’s desk too many times when Filippo had called him in to berate him for his failures. For a moment, and for no reason that he could readily explain (or that he wished to examine), Carlo’s first instinct was to grab the crucifix and suffocate the Inquisitor with it. He shook the thought violently out of his head, earning a look of confusion from Alva.

Carlo had opened the door quietly and he and Alva had exchanged no words yet, but he was still sure that the Grand Inquisitor was aware of his presence. Carlo couldn’t say what it was about the change in the Inquisitor’s posture that had made him realise that yes, he was paying attention to the fact that somebody else had entered the room, but he knew for sure that the Inquisitor knew that he was there. The incline of the Inquisitor’s head changed slightly as Carlo approached him. To Carlo, it more seemed that he was trying to work out who the new presence in the room was than it did he was acknowledging him. Carlo still didn’t say anything as he walked in a circle around the prie-dieu that the Inquisitor knelt at.

Alva leaned over and offered him a dagger, having decided that there was nothing he could do about this situation, so he may as well turn a blind eye if not actively support it, but Carlo shook his head. Alva found himself just staring at Carlo, trying to judge whether Carlo was actually going to go through with it. He had seen a wild look in Carlo’s eyes before, yes, but his expression now didn’t match with it, and for a moment he almost thought Carlo wouldn’t be able to go through with it. He just looked sad, not angry.

Still, Alva couldn’t leave quickly enough when he was dismissed by Carlo. As he was leaving, he managed to place the dead look in Carlo’s eyes as being less sad and more emotionally empty. Clearly, whatever state the Duke of Posa was in (or, God forbid,  _had been_ in when he died), Carlo wanted to make the Inquisitor suffer at least twice as much. If it hadn’t been somewhat disturbing to Alva, then he would have found it heartening, how much Carlo adored Rodrigo. He had seen Carlo angry before now, though, and he didn’t feel like getting in between him and the Inquisitor.

He waited in the antechamber outside the room, even though he wanted to leave – ideally the Inquisitor’s rooms, preferably the entire country – and waited for Carlo.

Carlo wasn’t angry, somehow. He had thought, when he finally got to face the Grand Inquisitor after he had found out just how damaged Rodrigo was, that he would see the Inquisitor and immediately grab the nearest bladed implement to him and stab him. And of course, he had thought of grabbing and killing him immediately as he had entered the room, but now that he had been in here, waiting, for a couple of minutes, and the Inquisitor hadn’t threatened him, he just felt emotionally cold.

The Inquisitor slowly got to his feet and wheeled around to face towards Carlo. “The Duke of Alva has left?” he asked.

“Yes.” When the Inquisitor stepped away from the prie-dieu that he had been kneeling at, Carlo stepped forward. He found himself picking up the crucifix that the Inquisitor had been holding from the desk of the prie-dieu – partly just for something to do, but partly because he knew that it was not the Inquisitor’s. It had belonged to Carlo’s father, and not to the Inquisitor; rightfully, Carlo was now its owner.

“Then you have your Duke of Posa back?” The Inquisitor’s voice was cold, and Carlo hated hearing him speak of Rodrigo, either like that or at all. “If you are here to ask for absolution…” The Inquisitor spoke with a cold smirk, and Carlo wanted to strangle him.

“What would I need absolution for?” Carlo spoke through gritted teeth, but if he noticed the frosty atmosphere, the Inquisitor either didn’t let on or simply didn’t care.

“The whole court is aware of your activities with the Duke of Posa,” the Inquisitor continued. “He will not be joining your poor father in heaven, I am certain of that.” It took all Carlo had not to take his dagger and stab the Inquisitor for this, but he could see that he still had more to say. “A King should not go to Hell, even if he _is_ seduced by a courtier.”

Carlo took a step towards the Inquisitor, and he was sure that the old man was aware of it – but he still made no effort to try to get away from him. He didn’t even hurry up his speech, continuing with same slow, deliberate affect. Carlo could see how this man had struck so much fear and hatred into the heart of his father now, because even this short time in his presence had Carlo wishing the ground would just open up beneath the Grand Inquisitor and take him straight down to Hell.

“Your Duke is set on his path to Hell,” the Inquisitor said. Carlo gripped the Crucifix more tightly, even though the gemstones that covered it were beginning to bite into the palm of his hand. “But _you_ are not past salvation. If you _wish_ for absolution–”

That was enough.

Before the Grand Inquisitor could continue the sentence, Carlo leaned over and slapped the Grand Inquisitor across the face. He recoiled and for a moment seemed to be about to retaliate before he remembered how doing so to the King would progress. Carlo caught his wrist before he could try to do anything even so, and at the same time he wrenched the Inquisitor’s chin upwards with the crucifix that he held in his right hand.

“I would warn you never to allow the Duke of Posa’s name to cross your lips again in your life,” he growled, knowing that the Inquisitor wouldn’t be aware whether he was being threatened with a sword or simply a cross-shaped implement, “but I’m sure you remember that that is hardly necessary.”

“You said as much, Sire.” The Inquisitor sounded coldly disrespectful. Carlo jabbed the top of the crucifix a little harder against his throat to cut off his breathing the slightest bit. He felt the Inquisitor swallow. “However, since Posa is still alive–” Carlo struck him across the face again, with neither any warning or word of reproach this time. He had told the Inquisitor not to say Rodrigo’s name in his presence; the consequence was his own choice. “Since he is still alive, I beg your clemency.”

“You beg in vain.” Still holding the crucifix, Carlo shoved the Inquisitor down onto the wooden floor. His head was knocked against the prie-dieu as he fell, and he made no effort to move any further. “My father…” Carlo spoke stiltedly for a moment as he knelt beside the Inquisitor, who sat, stunned, half propped against the prie-dieu, still unaware of what the weapon for his death would be. Carlo could see blood beginning to dribble down his temple from the head wound.

“Your father?” The Inquisitor’s voice was weak, and Carlo could tell from his expression that the blow had confounded his senses. His face was dazed, his eyes swimming even though they were sightless, and his head wavered from side to side as though searching out something that wasn’t there.

“My father was a bad King and a weak man.” Being on his knees for any amount of time put undue pressure on the bullet wound in Carlo’s side, and it stung more and more with every second that passed. He had barely noticed when he had been holding Rodrigo, but now that it was at the Inquisitor’s behest that he was kneeling he was hyper-aware of the pain. “I am neither.”

He had the crucifix pressed down against the Inquisitor’s sternum now, and even though Carlo had never had great physical strength and now he was probably as weak as he could be while still being able to walk around unassisted, he could feel him struggling for breath against it. The Inquisitor made a sound of pain when Carlo exerted the slightest bit more pressure. “I don’t mean to bow to your power, or to the power of any man.”

“It seems to me, Sire…” The Inquisitor moved in an attempt to get purchase and push himself upright and away from under the crucifix. Carlo shoved him back again. “It seems that, in submitting yourself to the Duke of Posa–” This time, when Rodrigo’s name was mentioned, Carlo lifted the crucifix and brought it down, hard enough to wound but not to kill, on the Inquisitor’s sternum. He felt a bone crack under it, and the Inquisitor groaned. “In submitting yourself to _another man_ , you are doing just that.”

“Do you wish me to prolong this, Priest?” Carlo growled. When the Inquisitor said and did nothing in response, he continued. “Perhaps for as long as you tortured my Rodrigo?” As he spoke, he brought the crucifix down again, this time over the Inquisitor’s throat. He gasped for breath and grasped at the air for a good few seconds, but he still collected himself again. Carlo resented it. “Do you even have another week left on this earth, let alone the two months that you tried to destroy him?” Another blow with the crucifix, this time to the Inquisitor’s chest.

More gasping, this time accompanied with blood and flecks of foam at the Inquisitor’s mouth. “Perhaps I had, at the beginning of this interview,” he growled. “If you would kill an old man, Sire, do it promptly.” He tried to lever himself up on the prie-dieu with his hand. Carlo brought the crucifix down on his fingers, hard enough to sting but not to damage what he held, and as the Inquisitor fell flat onto the floor, and as his eyes briefly rolled back into his head, Carlo thought that this had been the killing blow.

He was still breathing, or gasping for air, the breaths rattling in his throat and chest as blood built up there, and for a moment Carlo was tempted just to finish it off quickly. The Inquisitor was old; he would be judged by heaven and Carlo knew that he would be found wanting. But hadn’t Rodrigo suffered enough? Hadn’t the people of Flanders and Brabant? Hadn’t everybody touched by the Inquisition suffered enough? Even his father had been through enough at the hands of the man currently barely clinging to life on the floor beneath Carlo.

No, he deserved a slow death. If, several hours or even several days from now, the Inquisitor was still alive, exsanguinating and choking to death on the floor of his own office and begging God for salvation, it would not be enough punishment for the damage he had inflicted upon the people that Carlo loved. “Rodrigo did _nothing_ but serve his King and his country,” Carlo said. “What service have _you_ bestowed upon my realm that makes you worthy of a swift or noble death?”

The Inquisitor’s eyes were half open now and Carlo couldn’t even determine which direction his gaze was fixed in as he spoke. “I have never murdered a Priest.” He finally managed to stare straight at Carlo, and had he not been blazing with anger he probably would have been terrified.

“You have lost the right to call yourself a priest,” Carlo said. “But the ministers of the Church that your inquisition burned at the stake had not.” He put his free hand to the Inquisitor’s throat and squeezed. “I pray that the people of Spain and the souls of the people that you have already killed and damaged beyond repair can finally find _peace_ with you gone.” When he felt the Inquisitor beginning to lose his fight against being strangled, he pulled his hand away, again turning the now bloodied crucifix over in his hands.

It would be the nobler thing to do, now that the Inquisitor was on the verge of death, to end it quickly, and as painlessly as possible, and Carlo had a dagger with him. He still found himself so angry, both at the fact that Rodrigo had been tortured and at the fact that he had been forced to see countless innocent people burned at the stake and socialised to think that it was _normal_ , that this was the way a moral society conducted itself and how it helped its most vulnerable, that he wanted the Inquisitor to suffer as much as he had; as much as the people of Spain and all her vassal states had.

With a clarity of mind combined with violence that he had never felt before in his life, Carlo brought the crucifix down on the face of the Grand Inquisitor. The Inquisitor screamed once but was then silent, and when Carlo felt his wrist for a pulse, he found only a sluggish heartbeat. One final blow with the wide, heavy base of the crucifix, to the centre of his chest, combined with the sickening crunch of ribs and sternum and God-only-knew what else under the Inquisitor’s robe and skin, and it was over.

But Carlo found himself lingering over the body of the Inquisitor, his eyes still open and staring up into nothing as they always had been in life, for a long time. He knew in his heart and his mind that he was dead; there was no way he couldn’t be, Carlo was covered with his blood, and he could see the unevenness of bones poking through skin under his robes and the shattered bones of his skull through the blood and gore of having his face bludgeoned. Even so, some small part of him still thought that the Inquisitor would rise from the ground any moment now to exact his revenge upon his killer, however well-deserved his death had been.

Carlo tried to shake the thought from his head. He was splattered liberally, all over his shirt and hose but also sprayed upwards onto his face and his hands and the floor around him, with the Inquisitor’s blood. It was already drying stickily over him, and some part of his brain that was still thinking somewhat logically told him that Rodrigo would be _horrified_. Alva and Lerma would be sickened by the sight of him and the knowledge of his actions too, of course, but neither of them had just been rescued from torture at the hands of the Inquisition, and Rodrigo was more important to Carlo in any case.

He would have to wash and change his clothes before he went back to him, but what he really wanted now was a drink of something particularly strong to wash the knowledge that the Inquisition had _known_ of his and Rodrigo’s love all along from his mind, and to be back with Rodrigo. Now that he had spoken to the Inquisitor about it, he was more certain than ever that Rodrigo deserved an apology for all he had been through, not just when he had been tortured but since the deaths of his father and his older brother.

And God, Rodrigo had only been seventeen, a couple of weeks shy of turning eighteen, when his father and his brother had been killed in the war. Both officers, and both sensible enough to stay back from the action, Carlo remembered, so completely devastating to not just Rodrigo but to his mother, and to his sisters. It had been explained to Rodrigo, formerly the younger son and both expected and completely content to go into the Clergy and pass a quiet life, that as the new Marquis of Posa that he would have to take on the responsibility of not only his father’s estate but for the army Regiment that his father had headed.

Rodrigo had only wanted Carlo; in fact, his first thought as he found out that his father was dead had been to run to Carlo’s rooms. Carlo still remembered being horrified by the sight of Rodrigo _crying_ , for the first time he had allowed Carlo to see him cry since the disastrous badminton incident when they were children, and he remembered trying to gently untangle what had happened from around Rodrigo’s incoherent sobs. He had been horrified, not even two weeks later, when Rodrigo had told him that he was going to Malta, as soon as he turned eighteen. In fact, he had tried to reject Rodrigo and push him away, but Rodrigo had been persistent, and that, somehow, was what brought Carlo to where he was now.

Mercifully, Alva let him leave without a word being exchanged between them. He knew what Carlo had done, and he didn’t want to discuss it. For his part, Carlo disappeared back to his rooms, because taking care of Rodrigo, especially now that he knew more of the facts, was far more important than whatever Alva might have wanted to talk to him about, had he tried to start a conversation.

Somehow, even with Carlo having been away for the best part of an hour, and with him going through all the rigmarole of scrubbing the Inquisitor’s blood off his face and arms and changing his clothes, Rodrigo was still curled up asleep in the bed when he returned to the bedroom. He had clearly been asleep the whole time Carlo had been gone; the clean clothes on the bed were still there and undisturbed, and neither he nor anything else in the room had moved.

Carlo didn’t want to wake Rodrigo up, and he was about to curl up on the chair near the bed when Rodrigo suddenly jerked upright, looking around as though he wasn’t entirely aware of where he was. Carlo immediately went to him, and Rodrigo buried his face in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he heard Rodrigo say against his chest. “I don’t know why I’m acting like this.”

“Don’t apologise.” As he reached for Rodrigo’s hand, Carlo was slightly thrown by how much his attitude had changed in the past few minutes. He had just bludgeoned a man to death, and even if that death had been fully deserved, the fact that he was now holding Rodrigo against his chest and comforting him was producing no little dissonance within his mind. “If anybody should be apologising for…” He indicated vaguely with the hand that Rodrigo wasn’t holding onto. “If anybody should be apologising for allowing all of this to happen, it’s me.”

“You didn’t know.” He felt Rodrigo shrug.

“I _should_ have.”

Rodrigo clearly wasn’t in the mood to argue semantics, or even to have a conversation. He leaned back into Carlo’s arms and rested his head against his chest, and for the time being, Carlo was happy just to hold him. He had Rodrigo back, which had been the most frightening thing for him, and now that he knew that Rodrigo would at least have the opportunity to recover from being tortured by the Inquisition, he felt a lot calmer. Not completely calm, because Rodrigo was still extremely fraught, but he was less angry.

“I’ve already washed,” he said gently, “but you still haven’t.” He felt Rodrigo freeze on his lap. “I promise you’ll feel better for it.” He rested his chin on top of Rodrigo’s head and felt Rodrigo cuddle into him. “I’ve brought you some warmer clothes, as well,” he added, because he could feel Rodrigo shaking and he knew for a fact that Rodrigo got cold easily, “and if you want me to, I will leave the room.”

“I’m just…” Rodrigo looked up at him. Carlo cupped his face in one hand. “I’m so exhausted.” He curled back into Carlo’s arms and buried his face in his chest again, but he still allowed Carlo to continue gently stroking his cheek as he held him.

“I know you are,” Carlo said. _I can tell_ , he thought, but didn’t say out loud. He didn’t want to upset Rodrigo, or at least not any more than Rodrigo had already been upset. “You can go back to sleep as soon as you’re done.”

Rodrigo shifted so that he could kneel facing Carlo, and Carlo could tell from the way that he held himself that there were various things keeping him from wanting anybody looking at him. Yes, he could see some of the bruises and some of the cuts, but he was sure that there were many more that were covered by his clothes. He had seen at least one when they had been in the dungeon, the welt on his back, but that surely wasn’t going to be the full extent of it.

The clothes that he had been wearing – or at least the shirt, from what Carlo could feel against his skin when he had been holding Rodrigo – were particularly rough. They clearly weren’t designed to be comfortable, and that was another reason that Carlo wanted him to change out of them. Quite aside from the fact that they represented something that Carlo didn’t want Rodrigo to be unnecessarily reminded of, and the fact that he would feel better if he washed at least the worst of the blood off before he went back to sleep, the rough fabric against open wounds and bruises must have been extremely unpleasant.

He could tell that there was something else wrong, other than the fact that Rodrigo was physically and emotionally exhausted from his ordeal, and the fact that he just wanted to be held and go back to sleep, but he also knew that Rodrigo wasn’t telling him. Carlo leaned over and very softly lifted Rodrigo’s face up by putting a hand against his cheek to make him look at him properly, but he let him go as soon as Rodrigo tried to pull away. He didn’t want to try to force anything that Rodrigo would be in any way uncomfortable with, and this clearly terrified him to think of.

“I won’t ask again if you’re this upset by it,” Carlo said. “I don’t want you upset, or frightened, or to make _anything_ that you’re feeling any worse.”

“I know,” Rodrigo said. Carlo gently pushed him back to lie down on the bed, and when he settled down beside him, Rodrigo seemed only too happy to be held. “I haven’t slept for more than ten minutes at a time since all…” Rodrigo trailed off, unable to say what had really happened. Carlo put his hand against the side of Rodrigo’s face and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I just want to sleep. That’s all I want for now.”

Carlo nodded and ran his hand down Rodrigo’s back, and even though Rodrigo held onto him, Carlo felt him tense up and wince when he was touched. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Carlo said. “Tell me where…” As he spoke, Rodrigo took Carlo’s hand and guided it to rest against his chest. Carlo supposed there were no injuries there, but he still didn’t want to move his hand for fear of hurting him more.

Carlo could feel himself drifting off to sleep, especially since he knew that Rodrigo was comfortable being held and because it was warm, and he and Rodrigo were under the covers together, but he was suddenly woken again by Rodrigo moving to sit up. “The Inquisitor, I…” When Carlo looked up, he could see how troubled and frightened Rodrigo was.

“You have no need to worry about him,” Carlo said. He remained lying down on the bed beside him in the hopes that Rodrigo would lie back down again when he felt calm enough. “The Inquisition can’t trouble you any longer; you’ve been pardoned.”

“But, the Inquisitor…”

“And he _certainly_ can’t hurt you now.” Carlo tried not to sound too ominous, but he could tell from Rodrigo’s expression that he knew what had happened to the Inquisitor.

He needed to tell him that the Inquisitor knew about their relationship, and even though this didn’t feel like an appropriate time, he wasn’t sure there would ever be an appropriate time. “Rodrigo…” Carlo sat up, and found himself leaning against Rodrigo for support, because after what he had done to the Inquisitor it still hurt slightly to move. Rodrigo rearranged his legs, and when he did so, Carlo could see the wound from the shackle on his right wrist.

“The Inquisitor?” Rodrigo said. When Carlo nodded, Rodrigo ran his hand down his face and then winced when he accidentally put too much pressure on a bruise. “I don’t want you to tell me about it.” When Carlo looked confused, because he knew that Rodrigo was difficult to frighten, and he thought Rodrigo would need closure, Rodrigo’s expression changed. “ _Please_.” Carlo took Rodrigo’s hands, and Rodrigo responded by curling back into his arms.

“It’s important that you know. I won’t tell you what I did to him, but I need to tell you about this.” Rodrigo didn’t look like he wanted to hear any of what had happened to the Inquisitor, or anything that Carlo had learned, but he nodded even so. Carlo crossed his legs so that Rodrigo could sit on his lap comfortably, and as he spoke, he began stroking Rodrigo’s hair. “There is nothing he or anybody else can do to either of us for it now,” Carlo said, and he felt Rodrigo freeze as he spoke. “However, the Inquisitor knew that we are lovers.”

Strangely, Rodrigo relaxed when Carlo said that. He leaned up and wrapped his arms properly around Carlo. “I know about that, believe me.” When his sleeve slid up his forearm to his elbow, Carlo saw a massive cut going up the inside of his forearm. It was surrounded by dark bruising and looked like it hadn’t been inflicted by a knife but by a cane or something similar. Rodrigo knew that he was looking at it, but he didn’t react to it. “I’m sorry – I thought you had found something else.”

“No, no. He…” Carlo stopped himself from speaking about anything that would make Rodrigo uncomfortable and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. He can’t hurt either of us now, I’ve seen to that, but I was afraid, I didn’t…”

Carlo didn’t know what it was that he didn’t want, but Rodrigo knew him better than he knew himself. As he laid back down again and pulled Carlo down beside him, Rodrigo answered for him: “You didn’t want to upset me more, I understand.” He shifted around for a few seconds, but then sat up. “I think you were right, Carlo.”

That was a first. “About what?”

Rodrigo indicated his clothes. “About this.” Carlo sat up as well, and Rodrigo frowned down at what he was wearing. “Why were you so determined to get me out of them, hm?” And when Rodrigo leaned over and kissed Carlo properly, it was almost as though nothing had happened, and Rodrigo was teasing him like he always had again.

“Nothing but innocent motives,” Carlo teased back, lifting Rodrigo’s chin with his index finger as he kissed him again. _And you’re so covered with wounds,_ Carlo thought, but didn’t say. _I don’t want you to be in any more pain._ At least Rodrigo would finally let Carlo take care of him, because when he got to his feet he nearly fell over. Carlo put his arms around him to help him stand.

Carlo left Rodrigo to undress and went to get a cloth and a jug of water. He would have been happy just to get the water and the cloth and leave Rodrigo to his own devices until he had cleaned up the blood and accumulated grime that he was covered with and dressed himself again in the clean clothes, but Rodrigo seemed to need the attention and affection.

Carlo had been able to see that Rodrigo was injured when he had still been dressed, but when he came back to the bedroom and Rodrigo had undressed, he could see just how bad his injuries were. He was sat on the bed with his back to Carlo, but even without Rodrigo facing him, Carlo could see the welt on his back. He couldn’t tell where it could have come from, but it looked incredibly painful. His back was bruised as well, and something about the muscles along the back of his right shoulder didn’t look right in the way that he held them.

Carlo knelt on the bed beside Rodrigo and gave him one of the two cloths. He soaked the other one in the water and gently lifted Rodrigo’s chin with the hand that he wasn’t holding the cloth in. “Tell me if I hurt you,” he said, and he leaned close to Rodrigo’s shoulder before carefully cleaning the wound from where the shackle had rubbed Rodrigo’s wrist raw. Rodrigo had been in the army for long enough that he could use either hand to do most things, but his right hand was shaking even though he didn’t respond to Carlo cleaning the injury in any other way.

There was blood dried in Rodrigo’s hair, too, which Carlo knew would be uncomfortable to remove but that still needed doing. Rather than using the cloth, Carlo wetted his hands and carefully worked the water through one of the smaller mats of blood in his hair. Rodrigo winced, but didn’t pull away, allowing Carlo to do what he was doing as he washed the worst of the injuries on his stomach and thighs. There were no cuts on his chest, although there were a fair number of bruises, but there was very little that needed to be cleaned.

When the worst of the blood in Rodrigo’s hair was gone, Carlo began carefully washing around the welt on his back. He almost didn’t want to ask, but he had to know, just so that he could avoid accidentally hurting Rodrigo by alluding to something that he didn’t want reminding of. “Can I ask you what happened?” he asked, still not daring to touch the injury, even very gently with the cloth. “You don’t have to, not if you don’t want to, but…”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Rodrigo said. “It’s just… It feels completely numb. I wouldn’t know if you touched it.” He turned half way around and tipped his head sideways so that he could look properly at Carlo. “I honestly couldn’t say, but I don’t think I want to know what happened.” Carlo nodded, and leaned down to kiss Rodrigo’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” Carlo didn’t say anything more as he continued cleaning the injury on Rodrigo’s back, and Rodrigo didn’t reply. Neither of them needed to speak in order to communicate what they were feeling, either in this situation or in any other situation, and even though Carlo just wanted to hold Rodrigo he knew that it wouldn’t help, or at least not right now.

Rodrigo didn’t look quite so dramatically injured or weak after they had cleaned the worst of the injuries, and even the welt on his back didn’t look quite as painful as Carlo had worried that it was. He still looked pale, and he looked afraid, but Carlo could at least see that he looked slightly more like his normal self. Carlo went to get rid of the jug of now-dirty water and the two cloths, as well as the clothes that Rodrigo had been wearing, while Rodrigo changed into the clothes that Carlo had given him.

“Are you that tired?” Carlo asked softly, as he watched Rodrigo sit cross-legged on the bed. Rodrigo looked up at him, clearly exhausted, and Carlo almost laughed. He didn’t need to answer the question. “Go to sleep, then,” Carlo said. “I don’t want you to keep yourself awake on account of me.” Fortunately, Rodrigo did laugh as he crawled under the covers in the bed. “Oh–” Carlo suddenly looked at the clothes that he was holding. “I… I’m sure you don’t want to be reminded of any of this again. Would you be upset if I destroyed these?”

Rodrigo thought for a second, but then shook his head. “No, I… never want to think about being there again.”

Carlo nodded, but he knew for a fact that it would never be that simple. He had seen how afraid Rodrigo had been when it had even been alluded to that he had been tortured, and Carlo himself was still afraid to talk to him about it. If it would help for him to have the clothes destroyed, then Carlo wouldn’t begrudge him it, and there was a fire burning in a hearth in one of the anterooms to Carlo’s bedroom. The room was empty, and he threw both the prison clothes and the two cloths onto the fire.

Rodrigo was asleep again when Carlo returned, and even though he didn’t want to wake him, Carlo still wanted to get into the bed with him. He hadn’t been able to be held, by Rodrigo or by anybody else, for over a month, and he knew that Rodrigo needed somebody to look after him. Rodrigo didn’t wake up, or even really react as Carlo curled up beside him, but he made a small sound when Carlo pulled him close and buried his face in Rodrigo’s hair.


End file.
